


A Recipe For Disaster

by loOkMA_iTyPeLiKeDiS



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (this tag boutta show up in all my smuts from now on lmao I luvs it), Alternate Universe - College/University, Certified Hot Nerd™ Pidge, F/M, Fuckbuddies, Instant Attraction, Jealous pidge, Lance (Voltron) is Cut, Magic Cock, Obtuse Pidge, clichés galore!, fuckboy!lance, jock/nerd dynamics, lotta sexy timez, lotta shmut, very ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 06:53:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 65,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19420741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loOkMA_iTyPeLiKeDiS/pseuds/loOkMA_iTyPeLiKeDiS
Summary: A mistake in the system leads to Pidge becoming the RA of a floor for an all boy’s dorm. And unfortunately having to deal with one Lance McClain,fuckboy extraordinaire, a guy so infuriating she can’t even look at him without wanting to wring his neck (or fuck him… she’s not entirely sure).





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i couldn’t find a modern setting plance fuck buddies au set in uni, so uhhh… i wrote one ^^;; took a full month and some change, but i finally finished this monster of a oneshot (split in two for reading convenience!)
> 
> anyway hope you enjoy! :D
> 
> (ps: title might be subject to change, but two days were wasted trying to figure one out so... i give up D'X)

For all intents and purposes, Pidge’s life _should be_ perfect.

Self-proclaimed or not, she’s sure she’s valedictorian of her year at Galaxy Garrison University. She’d finished her entire first year of uni earning a President’s List distinction for both terms. It’s even more impressive that her grades are so stellar considering her major is computer science engineering and that within her first month as a freshman, she’d already declared a double major in math and minor in philosophy of science tech. _And_ she’ll start out her sophomore year with a fall internship for a software engineering company near their campus thanks to the aid of her perfect advisor.

Matt keeps trying to tell her she’ll make herself miserable and burn herself out before the year even ends if she doesn’t supplement her extensive curriculum with some fun, but Pidge has very intense goals and she doesn’t really need the distractions. Her practically non-existent social life is a sacrifice she’d absolutely been and will continue to be willing to make.

She’s determined to be completely financially independent from her parents by the time she graduates, so she'd applied to be an RA since she needs to build up her savings account.

And while she isn’t necessarily that interested in being a resident advisor, it is an application booster and everyone _loves_ to see leadership roles on a CV. Plus, housing will be free, so her mom and dad absolutely push her to apply so they can save a good chunk of money. It doesn’t hurt that the school pays RAs a decent stipend as well, and as expected, she’d easily gotten the job. Training ends up being easy too, and by the time the RA orientation week ends, Pidge is ready to tackle her assignment with gusto.

And therein starts the problems.

Somehow, admin had seen the name Holt and conflated her application with her long-graduated brother’s and the mix-up ended with her being placed as the RA of the fourth floor in Arus, an infamous all boy’s dorm on their campus known for being notoriously out of control.

The dorm for pretty much all the “frat guys” who never pledge to frats.

That dorm in particular is the reason why the school had put deadbolts on all doors leading to the roof of every single dorm and building. Two years prior, apparently some drunk Arus guys thought it’d be funny to jump off the roof and try to land on a trampoline they’d set up at the bottom. Seven broken legs, a broken neck, some knocked out teeth, and an almost lawsuit and those idiots had fucked it up for anyone else to chill on the roof for stargazing or quiet kickbacks. The five RAs of the dorm at the time had all quit the next year. The astronomy club died. Some dorms had been famously known for their secret rooftop parties, but that tradition had been killed in one fell swoop.

(Apparently the stoners had staged a huge protest, but clearly, they hadn’t succeeded).

At the end of the day, Pidge is a go getter, and she prides herself on her razor sharp self-control and focus and she would never get distracted by the guys, but she doesn’t want to spend her entire sophomore year wrangling thirty rowdy young adult boys like some den mother. She has enough on her plate to deal with as is and she doesn’t think it’s fair that she’s being punished for a mistake on the part of the school.

“I’m sorry, Katie,” Coran, her boss, the head resident of all dorms tells her, though he at least has the decency to look apologetic, which is more than she can say for fucking Sendak in the Office of Residential Services who’d laughed in her face. “It’s out of my hands. It’s too late to switch up RA assignments, and we only consider switching and replacement for serious or life-threatening situations. You’d have to ask your fellow RAs if they want to switch with you.”

“This _is_ life-threatening! My blood pressure will skyrocket trying to keep control and I’ll die before I see my twenties!”

Plus, who the fuck would want to switch into an Arus dorm assignment? People practically sold their souls to not end up there.

“You’re young. You’ve got a lot to learn about life, and I think this placement might benefit you. People skills are a must for professional settings and this will help with that.” Coran chortles, shaking his head at her dramatics as he stands in a subtle gesture that it’s time for her to go. “This is a learning experience. Builds character. By the end of the year, nothing will faze you!”

And that’s that.

Pidge gives up trying to change her assignment, and on the plus side, Keith actually lives on her floor, so she can say with confidence that she’s not _completely_ surrounded by idiots. And she gets her own bathroom, so the fact that the miserable communal bathroom experience isn’t a factor is a definite plus as well.

…

By midway through the first month of school, she’s seen so many of the guys’ damn dicks on accident that she can pretty much recognise who the owner is without looking at their faces. Rizavi absolutely cannot understand how she isn’t freaking out when ‘ _Ryan Kinkade is on your floor and he’s got a Stallion Dick™!’_ but Pidge isn’t really one for being attracted to guys based on their looks.

(Even if some of them _do_ have pretty impressive packages).

She understands the stupid as fuck Wildest Floor of Arus Award is some kind of badge of honour for the guys in this dorm every year and informs them that as long as no paramedics have to be called, they can do whatever the hell they want. She also knows a lot of them are partiers and that most of the guys on her floor are juniors and seniors of legal age so she runs on a policy that as long as she doesn’t see or smell their weed or alcohol, she’s cool with whatever. She doesn’t care if they want to run around naked in the halls and she makes it clear to them that they don’t have to worry about acting proper in front of a girl, so long as they don’t make too much noise during quiet hours.

Pidge keeps to herself after that, and they all for the most part listen to her instruction and leave her be. She doesn’t badger them over every little thing—though she does have to implement a new ‘no sex in the common room’ policy when some guy leaves a full condom on one of the couches—and they greet her happily when they see her outside the dorm. She has a pretty chill group, and she likes to believe they all respect her.

Well, all except one.

Lance McClain, who refuses to respond to emails, doesn’t communicate when she leaves notes on his and Keith’s door, and when she leaves him a text on the provided cell number to check his email, that goes ignored too.

It makes her _furious_.

She knows he’d missed the first week because he’d been in Cuba or something, but Keith had told her Lance was definitely fully moved in now, and she’s trying her hardest to get him up to speed, but he clearly does not give two shits. She tells Keith to remind Lance to respond to her messages to go over the floor rules and her on-duty hours with him since he’d missed the first floor meeting, but she never hears from him.

Pidge has half a mind to try to hunt him down, but Keith tells her Lance does whatever the fuck he wants and to leave it be. That doesn’t sit well with her at all. If there’s one thing that Pidge values, it’s her absolute control over all aspects of her life and she’d be damned if one “free-spirited” guy derails all her efforts to keep a tight ship on her floor.

He sounds like trouble, so naturally, she dubs this guy a Grade A Moron (right up there with James Griffin, who’d lost his damn room key on the _second day_ ) and puts him at the top of her mental list of floor residents to keep a close eye on.

…

It’s by chance that Pidge ends up actually encountering Lance at the beginning of October, right around the time that professors start first exams or had set the due dates for early projects and essays. She’s also buried under piles of modules to complete and she has that Discrete Structures exam in two days, but she’d always been good at last minute studying sessions. So in her downtime, she checks in with each of her rooms, making sure no one is drowning and using some of her RA budget to buy them generic coffee from the overpriced coffee chain at their Commons or stale snacks from the Mini Mart that probably haven’t been changed out in a year.

Keith begs her to bring him something caffeinated and sweet, and when she walks in the room, she’s not surprised to find him half buried under a pile of notes as he attempts to cram for his physics exam tomorrow. Honestly, he’s an art major with a concentration in graphic design, so she doesn’t get why he’d decided to take _physics_ to fulfil the school’s physical science requirement. And she doesn’t get why he’d waited until his junior year to take care of it either.

(She’s positive he’s going to drop the class after this exam and take something like geology).

What she _is_ surprised to see is Lance also sitting on the floor with Keith, trying to make sense of the concepts. Lance doesn’t bother sparing her a glance when she stops by their legs, far too caught up in review problems on force and motion that she can solve in her sleep if she’s being perfectly honest. He’s never been in any time she stopped by before, so it’s kind of weird to see the tanned boy in his room for once.

“This someone with the answers to the test, Keith?” Lance mutters, shuffling around some other papers and seemingly not finding what he’s looking for when he sighs. “Because we’re both about to fail.”

“It’s just Katie,” Keith says instead, looking worse for wear.

His usually iridescent skin is just a touch shy of ashen and the vibrant indigo of his eyes is dulled by fatigue. Pidge would feel sorry for him, but she knows he’d been at his businessman sugar daddy’s apartment all week and had skipped two lectures and a review session so she has no remorse for his plight.

“Who?”

“Katie Holt? Our RA…?” Keith responds slowly, giving Lance a look like he’s the dumbest person to walk the planet. “ _Pidge_ , dude.”

And Lance turns then and curiously looks up at her, and she’s a little startled by how disgustingly attractive he is. Lithe muscled like Keith, but decidedly taller, soft brown hair that curls at the ends, and literally perfect sun-kissed skin that a lot of people would kill for. A chick magnet through and through in the same way that Keith pulls guys out of nowhere.

It’s almost unbelievable to her that this shell necklace wearing nuisance really is the same idiot who apparently went streaking with his buddies with a megaphone after some party last weekend. His sexy Cuban good looks don’t exactly scream ‘dudebro’ to her, and it throws her off.

“ _You’re_ Pidge?” he questions incredulously, a hint of amusement in his voice as a slow smile grows on his face.

Well, amusement and something else that makes her skin prickle as he takes her in. They make eye contact, and even through the haze of exhaustion in Lance’s gaze, she knows interest when she sees it. She also doesn’t miss the way one of his brows is quirked, like he knows secrets about her or something and Pidge wonders what the hell Keith has said to Lance about her before.

She scowls nonetheless, suddenly feeling like maybe she should have at least put some pants on before visiting Keith. But she’d woken up from a nap when she’d gotten his distressed text and pulled on one of Matt’s giant sweatshirts thinking Keith would be the only one in his room considering since the semester has started, the elusive “Lance McClain” hasn’t ever been around. She also kind of wishes she’d brushed her hair because it tends to start resembling sex hair when she doesn’t.

“You’ve got a problem with that?”

“You’re just not what I expected…” Lance says, grin easy and gaze lazily drifting down her figure as he leans back against his bedframe. “ _At all._ Thought you’d have a dick is all. Since this is a dorm full of dicks.”

“Yeah, I’m aware,” she drawls, giving him her patented look of complete disinterest she gives most obnoxious guys who blatantly check her out like that. “I’ve been trying to get in contact with you for the past month, you know?”

“Ah. I don’t do emails. Sorry,” he responds, completely unapologetic.

“I texted you too.”

“Yeah. I saw those.”

That’s all he offers her, and Pidge feels her eye twitch in irritation. How can he not care about basic communication? All professors pretty much communicate via email, and his complete apathy over that is appalling to her. She checks all four of her emails, uni, personal, professional, and internship, at least four times a day and responds to everything immediately.

“You come bearing gifts?” Keith asks, staring at her hand and redirecting her attention to him.

“Here.” Pidge leans down and hands Keith the cup when he makes a passive gimme motion with his outstretched hand. “Tis the season. To be basic.”

Lance chuckles at her stupid joke—and his mellow voice drifts in her ears like smooth chocolate—but Keith takes a sip and makes a face of disgust.

“What the fuck is this shit?”

“PSL, Keith,” Pidge responds, making herself comfortable on their saucer chair in the corner. It nearly engulfs her whole as she lands in the heavy groove. She transforms her voice into a horrible prissy Californian valley girl accent. “It’s like totally all the rage, amirite?”

“Yeah, I don’t want it,” Keith passes it over to Lance and Pidge grumbles about him being an ingrate. “Here. A basic drink for a basic bitch.”

Lance shrugs and takes it. “Can’t let it go to waste after she went to all the trouble.”

He ends up getting some whipped cream on his upper lip when he takes a sip. Pidges watches his tongue as it darts out to lick it off, and she doesn’t realise how hard she’s staring at his mouth until he looks up. She’s not really sure why she doesn’t think to break eye contact, but he doesn’t stop slowly licking his lips and her neck flushes involuntarily. Whatever is in his eyes, it’s some type of innuendo she doesn’t want to analyse.

And she decides right then and there that she wants nothing to do with Lance McClain.

…

Except for some reason, now Lance is _everywhere_ when before he’d practically been non-existent.

He’s usually chilling or playing cards with the guys in the common room as she passes by them on the way to her room. Or he’ll be lounging on a picnic blanket on the small grassy field in front of their dorm with some of his friends. Twice, she’d seen him in the School of Engineering library flirting with the receptionist while Pidge tried to check out research material. (Annoying as fuck, by the way). And now she makes it a habit of lifting up her book of the month and pretending like she’s enthralled in the literature just to avoid him possibly seeing her when she crosses his path on the quad.

It’s irritating because they have about forty thousand students on this damn campus and dorm resident or not, _statistically_ , it makes absolutely no sense for her to be seeing Lance as often as she does.

She just doesn’t get his appeal—well… she _gets_ his appeal—but to her he’s closer to the obnoxious side of the spectrum than charming. And yet, he gets along with everyone, he’s always hooking up with people, and apparently, he’s the life of the party wherever he goes. Rizavi keeps saying it’s because he’s a True Leo or some other bullshit Pidge doesn’t agree with.

He unsettles her, not because he isn’t friendly or anything and not because he’s actually done anything in particular to make her feel uncomfortable, but there’s just something about his carefree, devil may care attitude that irritates her.

Well that and the fact that he _oozes_ sex appeal.

She makes an active effort not to leave her room or come back to her room between nine and ten because she’d figured out his first class is at eleven and that’s when he wakes up and takes his showers. (On the weekends, it’s a wider window, noon and three, but she’s usually at her internship then anyway, so it doesn’t matter). He’s definitely one of the guys who has no issues with nudity. And the last thing she wants is to see Lance’s dick.

It also bothers her that he’s not straight slacker like she’d originally assumed. He’s on a pre-med track while majoring in biology and minoring in public health and according to Keith, his _practice_ MCAT score is already above 510, _and_ he’s got a competitive GPA to apply for med school next year, which drives her up a wall. A guy who parties his ass off most weekends and has no respect for rules and no care for propriety doesn’t deserve to be pulling decent grades and enjoying a vibrant social life.

And when Keith tells her Lance also volunteers at a children’s wing at the hospital near their university two mornings of the week, she officially begins to shun him, giving him nothing but curt nods in response to his enthusiastic greetings.

She’s ready to avoid him at all costs for the rest of the year, but as luck would have it, she needs the signed room liability forms from all of her residents and unsurprisingly, Keith and Lance are one of the rooms that hasn’t turned theirs in yet. When Coran starts sending out mass emails about the impending deadline to RAs who haven’t turned in all of the forms, she sucks it up and starts going to rooms to personally collect them.

When she finally gets to the room housing the current bane of her existence, Lance has his back to her, apparently returned from a one night stand with some chick he met at the pool during his workout. He’s got his shower caddy in hand, a towel around his waist, and is regaling an annoyed Keith with some of the more explicit details.

Pidge pays a lot more attention to the conversation than she wants to admit (girl wasn’t his kind of flexible, a little too shy about taking initiative sometimes, not too shabby riding him, but he apparently likes his women _shorter_ ) because she’s so focused on the contour of muscles in his back flexing as he moves his arm. And the cut of his biceps. And the subtle indentation of healing nail marks on his caramel skin.

It makes something annoying flutter in her lower abdomen.

Which definitely gets her thinking about how tall Lance is and his cute ass and the subtle outline she can see of his dick through the thin towel and _that_ definitely gets her thinking about what it might feel like inside her and she has to stop right there because that coiled heat flares and she refuses to acknowledge that she—100% capable of ignoring the dicks she sees every morning—would get in some sort of tizzy over one stupid guy’s _admittedly_ sculpted figure.

It’s not like she hasn’t noticed before, but standing by his open blinds with the sunlight dancing on his skin as he laughs, it pretty sharply hits her that Lance is very hot. And by that, she means very, _very_ fuckable.

And it pisses her off, because he _knows_ it.

Pidge loudly clears her throat to get his attention, Lance turns and she forces herself to remain detached despite the _look_ he levels her when he notices she’s there.

“Katie Holt.” Lance practically purrs her name, the dulcet tones of his voice low and smooth, and for a second, it’s not hard to figure out how he manages to get people in his bed. “Wasn’t expecting your company.”

“…I go by _Pidge_ ,” she corrects, regarding him warily as he walks over to her, crooked smirk firmly in place. She can vaguely hear Keith saying something about Lance needing to get his head checked, but neither pays their surly friend any mind. “And I’m your RA. Obviously I’ll be around.”

“Right, right,” Lance responds with an easy, playful grin, now standing in her way and leaning against the wall with his elbow. It unfortunately puts her that much closer to him, pretty much face to chest, and she has to tilt her head a bit to look him in the eye. “So. What brings you by today? Dying to see me?”

“Oh yeah definitely…” she drawls in monotone, blank look on her face. “I couldn’t get you out of my head, Lance. I’ve spent every waking moment _dying_ to see you again after that one unpleasant meeting we’ve had in the past.”

She’s never going to be that coy, flirtatious chick, but she takes hella pride in the fact that she has a 4.0 in Sarcasm.

“Anyway, periodic check-ins are to be expected, especially when you don’t turn in required forms. I need your signed liability form, you two.”

“Doesn’t seem like the only thing you need, to be honest.”

Pidge bristles at the comment, definitely not liking the implication of his words, and _especially_ not liking the casual way he’d made that borderline insult, all with the same infuriating smile on his lips. Pidge knows what he’s getting at, and she squares her shoulders, ready to snap at him.

“Weren’t you about to go shower or something?” Keith grumbles from his bed and it snaps them out of whatever standoff they’d been having.

“I’m going, I’m going…”

Lance moves past her to leave the room, eyes on her the whole time while she glares at him. After he’s gone, Pidge heads further into their room with a huff and only narrowly avoids getting clobbered by the pillow Keith launches at her.

“What the heck’s that for?”

She tosses it back at him, though misses by a mile and it hits their mini-fridge instead. Keith snorts, lowering his handheld game system for a moment and glancing at her with a dry look.

“You’re making it obvious that you want him to fill you like a cream doughnut, Pidge.”

She balks, her cheeks reddening. “ _What_? I have absolutely no interest in that douchebag fuckboy! He’s crude and perverted and he thinks he’s all that and a bag of chips and he’s absolutely cocky and arrogant and he’s everything that I hate in a guy and—”

“You have literally not taken your eyes off him once since you walked in,” Keith points out, cursing under his breath over something in his game and jabbing a button with his thumb repeatedly.

Pidge plops down on Keith’s bed, jolting him around as she yanks up his blanket and curls up in it beside him. She shimmies up until her head is also on his pillow to watch him fail at his fighting game.

“How would you know?” she argues, vexed because it’s true. “You couldn’t even see me.”

“I’m clairvoyant,” he deadpans, and Pidge snorts when he loses another life, only one left before he’ll get knocked out. “If it makes you happy, he barely remembers his hookups’ names, but he remembers yours for some reason. And random facts that have nothing to do with anything. God, he’s an idiot.”

But it’s said without bite and with a fond look of exasperation that Pidge is certain is indicative of all their interactions.

It’s surprising to her for all their bickering that they’d decided to be roommates. Hell, it surprises her that they’re such good friends at all considering Keith is textbook emo kid who was rumoured to have killed a man by his classmates in high school and Lance is textbook popular high school jock with the hot girlfriends. But Keith’s low energy lifestyle is a perfect complement to Lance’s high energy one, so she supposes it makes some sense.

“Last week he told me you’re his type. He wants to fuck you.”

“Keep him the hell away from me.” Pidge glowers at Keith when she catches him watching her reactions carefully. And _no_ , her stomach hadn’t flipped in slight excitement over Keith’s comment. “He makes me sick.”

She isn’t the turning heads on sight type and being a late bloomer had made high school kind of sucky in the romance department, but bloom she had. She likes to think of herself as the typical designation for the Holts: Certified Hot Nerd™. And even though she does have some fun here and there, she draws the line at a screwed up hookup with some womanising jackass who likely is only interested because she’s a challenge.

“Well if it makes you feel better, he kind of wants to fuck anything with legs, Pidge. And you fall under that category, so… doesn’t say much.”

She pulls out her phone from her pocket and unlocks it to check her emails for anything new. “I’m not interested. Just because he’s…”

Hot as hell doesn’t seem to do him justice. Because it doesn’t really describe how intense his gaze is or how his smile lights up some fire in her abdomen that she wishes would chill out.

“…marginally attractive does not mean I’m just going to hop in bed with him the first chance I get.”

Keith pulls a face. “I don’t believe you. He’s the only guy you are actively vicious to. You so want him.”

“I’m not a fan of womanisers,” she asserts in disgust, jabbing Keith in the side with her elbow hard enough to mess him up on his combo. His character ends up losing the last bit of his life and getting knocked out and Keith groans in outrage. “Or dumb guys and partiers.”

And she really isn’t. If not for his looks, Lance wouldn’t even hold her interest for more than a few seconds. She tends to be more interested in guys who can intellectually stimulate her, and she doubts Lance is that type.

(And yes, she _is_ pointedly ignoring his med school ambitions because it has to be a fluke).

He’s a born troublemaker. She can feel it, and she’d be damned if she lets herself get distracted by a dude who is the absolute antithesis to the type of guy she thinks is more appropriate as a potential partner.

…

As an RA, it’s her job to make sure that her floor becomes something of a cohesive family, so Pidge decides to host a movie night one Friday night for anyone who isn’t really feeling going out and getting trashed or partying. The guys ultimately vote on The Expendables trilogy and she rents the AV equipment and sets it up in the common room with a shit ton of pizza, popcorn, chips, and soda.

(Her real motives are to preoccupy her boys with a social activity so they can leave her alone for a bit).

She expects it to devolve into craziness at some point—these are still Arus guys at the end of the day—but she knows none of them will really bother her while the movie is playing. And until it ultimately becomes some wrestling match or food fight or one of the guys tears the projector, she just needs a few good hours of uninterrupted time to get an essay done for her Engineering Ethics course that she had almost forgotten about. It may not be due until the next Wednesday, but it’s not normal for her to finish her papers with less than a week to spare, so she gets to hard work on it.

Once that’s done, she spends the next hour reorganising and double checking her entire schedule, using her coloured marker pens and neon post-it notes to mark off everything important on her whiteboard wall calendar to keep track of it all. The more she adds, the more satisfied she feels about her workload and schedule. It’s almost completely rainbow coloured by the end, but she has a system that works, and with that in order, she heads out to go print at the Commons since her own printer needs ink.

The guys are only at the climax of the second movie when she finally returns which gives her a lot more spare time than she’d expected. She forms a perfect idea to use the rest of the movie time to pamper herself, maybe chill in her bed with a couple pieces of pizza if the guys haven’t eaten it all and catch up on some shows until it’s time for her to pass the on-duty phone to Seok Jin.

But when Pidge walks in her room, she’s annoyed to find Lance standing in front of her desk, rubbing his chin pensively as he stares at her calendar.

“What are you doing in here?” she near growls. “Don’t you usually go out on the weekends?”

“That’s a lot of shit on your plate.” He lets out a low, impressed whistle, ignoring her obvious distaste at his presence. “Plus your sophomore year just started and you don’t technically even have to declare until March. How many majors do you have?”

“Two.” She’s still standing by the door, a hand on her cocked hip in hopes he takes a hint and leaves her room.

“Which are…?” Lance presses, not even a little fazed by her curt response. “C’mon, Katie. Give me something to work with here.”

“CS engineering and math, minoring in philosophy, and I’ve got a shit ton of stuff to do so if you would be so kind…?”

Only he doesn’t accept her gracious offer to leave and instead plops down on her futon couch, lying back and kicking his legs up and getting comfortable, as if he belongs there. Pidge exhales slowly, closing her eyes for a second and frustrated that her wish for a quiet evening to herself had gotten thwarted by him.

“Lance, I set up this movie night for the residents to go hang out with _each other_ and bond.”

“But what if I want to bond with my RA? Aren’t you on duty, anyway? You’re supposed to be available for us.” And there’s that stupid signature crooked smirk of his, the one she knows means he has absolutely no good intentions. “Relax, I’m just waiting for Kinkade to get back so we can go get drunk at a bar and Keith’s got his guy in our room so I’m currently homeless. You should come with us. You never go out on the weekends.”

“Hard pass. I’m eighteen. And you both aren’t twenty-one yet either.” Pidge frowns, moving to set her philosophy essay in her organiser for the Wednesday slot. She sits at her desk chair with a roll of her eyes. “That’s against the law.”

“Not my fault they don’t card in this city.” He shrugs like it doesn’t matter, idly texting on his phone, the one leg hanging off the side tapping the floor. “And Keith told me you’ve gotten wasted before.”

“One time because it was his birthday. I don’t drink.” Not regularly anyway. The occasional drink or pregame session when Rizavi drags her out to one of the campus apartment parties isn’t a big deal, but Pidge doesn’t make it a habit of consuming alcohol. “I don’t like not being in control.”

“That so…” He rests a hand under his head, a curious lilt to his tone. “I take it that applies to _other_ areas than just drinking too?”

And she knows exactly what he’s alluding to, but she absolutely _does not_ want to talk about sex with Lance. Not because of experience or anything of the sort, but she barely knows him, and she doesn’t like the direction this conversation is taking.

(She also doesn’t like that his heady gaze is on her and that she’s a little flustered).

Pidge opens her laptop lid and boots up her comp. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

“You know what I think? You’d enjoy someone wresting control out of your hands in bed.”

“Would you knock it off? I wasn’t even talking about sex.” She pushes her reading glasses up her nose nervously, wishing her laptop would go to the login screen already so she would have something else to focus on. “It’s a dumb topic.”

“Just making conversation,” Lance says nonchalantly, though his low chuckle makes her hairs stand on end. “Is it cuz you’re a virgin?”

“I’m not a virgin, and I’m not inexperienced either. I just think people make up stupid lies about sex to convince themselves they actually had a good time. I mean, Keith and some other girls I know are always talking about getting fucked until they can’t walk straight and I really think they’re exaggerating because I’ve never experienced bullshit like that before and the times I’ve had sex, it was hardly that amazing.”

But it’s not like she’s really had that many experiences to be honest.

She’d lost her virginity to one of Matt’s hot friends right before her freshman year, but truly, she’d only really been with her ex from first year, and even then they’d only done it a few times before their relationship had fizzled out. And then there’d been the two nights she’d had with a dude in that summer CS programme she’d gone to with Rizavi in July, but Lance doesn’t need to know any of her history because quite frankly, it’s none of his business.

Lance is so quiet for long enough that she has a chance to type in her code and get her screen up and her Netflix loaded, and she thinks maybe he’s decided to ignore her.

But then he says, “I could do it.”

“What?” she mutters almost noncommittally, rotating slowly from side to side in her desk chair and not particularly sure what he’s referencing as she skims her watch list.

“Fuck you until you can’t walk straight.” Her eyes snap to his, a strange anticipation curling in her stomach from the suggestive look he’s giving her. “I’m up for the challenge, if you’re considering.”

He’s toying with her.

She knows he has to be toying with her because he’s a flirt and that’s what they do, but for a brief moment, Pidge isn’t quick enough to shut down an interested thought of _yes, you probably could_.

“I’m not considering,” she retorts coolly, swivelling in her chair and facing her screen again to hide her slowly rouging cheeks. “Applications are closed at this time.”

Lance hums in amusement. “You think everyone is exaggerating because you haven’t found a guy who can give it to you the way you need it.”

Pidge scoffs, glaring at her screen as she scrolls down, but not really looking at anything in particular. “Oh and I suppose you’re that guy?”

His smirk warps into something darker.

“I’m always that guy.”

Arrogant jackass.

His tone is thick with hubris, and she can’t even imagine how someone can get that cocky in this short of a life. She’s absolutely had enough conversation with this absolute tool.

(And it’s not because for a second, she really had imagined what it would be like for him to pin her on her mattress, push her knees up to her chest and take her until she’s a moaning mess).

She’s thankfully saved when Kinkade pops his head past the door with a knock.

“Let’s go, McClain. Uber’s here. Hey, Pidge.”

“Thank God. Can you get this moron out of my sight?”

Kinkade chuckles, marginally confused as he looks between the two of them. “What’d he do?”

Lance, as usual, doesn’t seem to care that she hates his guts. As he walks by she catches the faint scent of his spicy cologne and a small shiver runs down her back at the feather light touch on her bare shoulder as he makes his way out of her door.

He smiles at her like he knows how affected she is. “Want me to bring you back anything special, Katie Kat?”

“No.”

And she leans over and slams the door in his face to his laughter.

…

By midterms, everyone has settled, patterns start to develop, and to her pleasure, the only two major incidents on her floor so far are the dumbasses who’d tossed a flaming bag of dog crap out of their window and hit a food truck and the idiots who’d shattered the window of the common room trying to play football on rollerskates.

To reward them, she ends up hosting a mini game night, though it winds up becoming a game of strip poker. (She leaves as soon as it’s suggested). The general feedback she gets from her residents is that game night needs to be a more frequent thing so she adds it to her calendar biweekly.

Pidge gets used to her schedule too and starts finding herself with a lot more downtime. She’s super grateful that she’d befriended Rizavi during their first year because her curriculum is _exactly_ the same as Pidge’s (the only difference being her computational linguistics minor) so she knows exactly when to leave Pidge be to do her deep studying thing.

But that also means she knows when they have an appropriate amount of downtime to socialise.

And when Rizavi wants to go out, Pidge _will_ go out too, even against her will at times.

It’s not the ideal way Pidge wants to spend her first free Saturday night since the end of the midterm struggle, but Rizavi forces her to go frat hopping, which is a major bust since a lot of the parties quickly get shut down for serving alcohol with minors in attendance. They end up going to someone’s off campus apartment party they catch wind of—some junior named Hunk in the mechanical engineering department, she thinks. According to some of their other friends, it’s chill and apparently he’s playing a good mix of EDM, dancehall, rap, and pop and party songs.

And it does turn out to be the best place they go to.

The playlist is actually pretty well put together, and Pidge spends the first hour dancing with Rizavi and then dancing with some cute guys when Rizavi starts making out with a girl from their Security and Cryptography course. Everywhere in the living room are a bunch of dancing bodies having a great time and it’s a lot of fun whenever a song comes on that everyone pretty much knows and they’re all shouting the lyrics and jumping around.

When it starts to get too hot and too packed, she excuses herself from her partner. She’s pretty parched and wedges her way through the dark, crowded condo to the kitchen, shielding her head with her elbows to avoid getting clobbered by taller people. She makes it to the kitchen unscathed until she trips and accidentally runs into someone’s back. By the time they turn around and she recognises that stupid fucking shell necklace and the mischievous smirk, it’s too late and he’s already seen her.

“Oh my God…” Pidge rolls her eyes in frustration. “Why do you have to be here?!”

They’ve both been busy and at most, she’s seen Lance in passing so he hasn’t bugged her too much, with the exception of the one time he’d stopped by her room to ask if he could borrow her HDMI cable. And even then, it’d only been a short interaction because he’d been in a rush.

(Now that she thinks about it, he’d never actually given her back the cable either).

“Guy who lives here is my best mate,” Lance responds, leaning close so she can hear him talking over the pounding music. She wants to step back, but his shirt is unbuttoned completely and despite all the sweaty bodies around them, he smells really good and she kind of ends up frozen in place, Lance’s lips nearly brushing her ear. “Well, well… she parties at last. Are your batteries charged enough for tonight?”

He’s calling her a robot, and it annoys her because just because her priorities are school does not mean she doesn’t know how to let loose. It’s not like she has anything to prove to _him_ , but she wants him to eat his words.

Eyes narrowed, she grabs a red solo cup, pours herself a whole ladle of the blue mystery punch until the cup is filled to the top and then holds it up at Lance to show him. And then she tips it back and chugs it, glad that it’s super sweet and doesn’t at all taste like any of the numerous liquor they probably put in it.

Lance is already looking pretty crossfaded, but his hazy gaze is half-lidded as he watches her knock back the entire drink. She knows it’s not smart for her to be drinking like this when she doesn’t normally, but the thrill of excitement from his eyes on her is undeniable and she can’t help but relish his attention. When she finishes it, she slams the cup on the counter and burps right in his face with a raised brow.

“Ah, so she isn’t _full_ robot.” Lance leans down to say, caging her between his body and the counter with his arms.

“I never was, you moron.”

He laughs like he still doesn’t believe her, so she grabs him by the hand, and she doesn’t know if it’s the sticky heat in the room or that stupid douchebag shell necklace, but she pulls him through the dancing bodies to a slightly freer space because she may be a nerd, but she _knows_ how to dance on guys and she wants him to eat his words in awe.

Lance absolutely doesn’t seem to mind as she wraps his and her arm around her and they rock together. It’s just chill at first, nothing too extreme, but then the song changes to something slower and dirtier with a pounding bass and nasty lyrics and Pidge backs up even more, moving her body in time with the beat and putting pressure on his crotch with her ass.

It changes the tone entirely, and she doesn’t try to fight it as Lance pulls her closer until she’s pressed flush against his chest, his hands holding her in place by the hips.

She’s not entirely sure why the fuck she’s going this far just to prove a point, but the dirty music blasting from the speakers is electrifying her. The dimmed lights are making her bold and she grinds on him and swivels her hips, reaching up and tangling a hand in his hair, loving the way his breath drifts down her collarbone in short pants and his hands trail along her waist and down her thighs and over her hips. She’s actually kind of glad Rizavi convinced her to crop top it for tonight because he can’t keep his hands off her. The way his fingers stroke across her skin has goosebumps rising on her arms.

“You have a bellybutton ring?” Lance murmurs in her ear, his voice gravelly and making a shiver run through her body.

A drunken mistake from Rizavi’s birthday over the summer that Pidge mentally thanks her best friend for.

She nods, biting on her lower lip with a smile and she’s pretty sure she hears him groan. It’s entirely too hot and Pidge is a little dizzy, but Lance’s lips grazing her neck feels good, and she takes pride in the fact that they’re super close with no space between them whatsoever. Fervid heat builds in Pidge’s abdomen, a rush of desire coursing through her body when she can feel his boner.

Lance turns her around and she wraps her arms up around his shoulders as they dance, despite her own head screeching at her over what she’s doing, but she can’t really focus when Lance’s eyes are this mesmerising. It’s kind of scary how much she likes being close to him this way, the way his arms feel around her, lips so close they’re sharing the same air.

“Do you smoke?”

It takes her a second to realise he’s speaking and she shakes her head.

“I’ve tried it twice though.”

Some guy hands him off the joint that’s being passed around, and Lance takes a long hit before handing it off to a random person nearby. He anchors her to him, eyes trained on her mouth, as if silently asking for permission. She thinks it’s crazy, but she opens her mouth to his, their lips brushing as she accepts the hot stream of peach flavoured smoke from Lance’s exhale. It’s more mellow than the more pungent one she’d tried a long time ago, but she still ends up coughing as it fills her lungs, groaning and hiding her face in Lance’s chest. She holds it for only a few seconds before her eyes start to water and then releases the smoke into the air, watching it float around them in some sort of hazy fog. Pidge grins up at Lance with a goofy smile, though her eyes do sting a little.

“See? Not so robotic after all, huh?”

“God… I want you…” he breathes out.

And she realises that he’s got the seductive charm dialled all the way up, blue eyes dark and intense, his voice smooth and deep, hypnotising her, and she’s falling for it, hook, line, and sinker. And even though she knows he’s just being his usual womanising, fuckboy self, her mind feels hazy and she _doesn’t_ want to stop. He ducks his head closer to hers, and even though she knows exactly what’s about to happen, she doesn’t pull away.

Lance’s lips are softer than she’d expected when he seals his mouth over hers, though his mouth is hot and he tastes like the blue mystery punch and peach smoke. She makes a small, satisfied noise, winding a hand in his sweat-dampened hair as their tongues twine, every one of her nerves tingling and feeling like they’re both numb and on fire at the same time when his long fingers grip her waist to drag her ever closer.

Making out with Lance McClain on the dance floor of an apartment party had definitely not been her intentions tonight, but he’s an amazing kisser, the heat from his hands is burning her, and the longer this goes on, the harder it is for her to focus on anything other than the rising tension under her navel.

Distantly, she feels Lance’s hand crawl over her ass, but when he squeezes her, Pidge suddenly comes to a horrifying realisation that she’s sucking face with the very guy who she refuses to ever do anything with because he _repulses_ her. She snaps out of the haze and breaks away with a sharp inhale, her face completely and utterly red because what the _fuck_ is she doing?

Lance looks dazed and confused like his mind hasn’t caught up to her recoiling yet, and in that beat of silence, she yanks out of his hold, her breath coming out in short pants.

“Oh my God… why are you kissing me?!”

“What?” He narrows his eyes as he licks his swollen lips. “You had your tongue in _my_ mouth.”

Pidge wipes her mouth slowly and then without another word, turns and runs away from him. She tracks down Rizavi sitting in the hallway with some of their stoner engineering classmates. She waves at Pidge happily in greeting, but hesitates when she takes one look at Pidge’s red face.

“Pidgey?” She shoots up to her feet and grasps Pidge’s shoulders. “Babe, you okay?”

“I’m fine. Riz, can we go? I’m kind of done for the night.”

Rizavi acquiesces, and they leave immediately, but the whole walk back to campus, she badgers Pidge for the reason why she’s acting like she just did something she shouldn’t have and if it has anything to do with her and Lance’s obvious foreplay on the dance floor. It takes Pidge offering Rizavi the opportunity for a sleepover in her room to get the chance to possibly see Kinkade’s beautiful Stallion Dick™ in the morning when he goes to shower for Rizavi to agree to drop it.

(For now, she says).

And anyway, Pidge has no idea how to answer Rizavi, because she herself doesn’t even know what the fuck had happened between her and Lance. By the time she and Rizavi get some late night snacks and settle under her covers to watch a movie, her heart still hasn’t stopped jumping as she recalls the way Lance’s body had felt against her. The strength of his arms around her. His hot breath brushing her ear. That kiss that had ignited a flame in her she wishes would just settle down already.

She’d been kissed before, but never like _that_.

And she _hates_ it.

Somehow she’d gotten sucked into his orbit and it isn’t as repulsive as it should be and that scares her.

…

She doesn’t actually see Lance for the next week and she’s glad because she’s _completely_ on edge.

Every time someone knocks on her door, she practically jumps until she knows it isn’t him, and she frequently checks the hallway first to make sure he’s not somewhere around so she doesn’t run into him. Maybe she’s acting cowardly, but what had happened at Hunk’s apartment is not something she knows how to bring up at all. Actually, she just wants to pretend like it hadn’t happened, but Lance seems like the kind of annoying guy who’d keep bringing it up.

At least she’s distracted when some guy on the fifth floor somehow makes his fucking microwave pizza catch fire and tosses it in _their_ floor’s common room garbage bin so the plastic bag inside catches fire which sets off the fire alarm in all of Arus and sets off the sprinklers on their entire floor. She’s the RA on duty at the time so the incident report falls on her. But as if that’s not bad enough, it’s storming outside, and protocol has them going across the field to the front of Balmera dorm. So they end up drenched in the cold fucking rain while they wait for the fire department to arrive. That leads to RA staff meetings with Coran about botched protocol and the people who hadn’t even bothered to leave the building, which in turn means training yet again and modules. It’s annoying, but while she deals with the aftermath of that, she has an excuse to avoid interaction with anyone because she’s too busy.

But by week two of her avoidance, Keith starts wondering why she hasn’t randomly visited him in a while and why she constantly texts him to ask if Lance is in. At some point, he asks her why she’s so actively trying to avoid Lance now, so she stops texting him back because if she keeps it up he might ask Lance. To lower his suspicions, she offers to stop by on Thursday night since they watch TV together anyway when Lance is usually out doing his own thing. She’ll be on duty partway through their hangout, but as long as she’s in the dorm, it’s fine.

But on Thursday, Keith goes on a date and says he’ll be back in his room late. She’s actually really looking forward to a chill night without any of the annoying drama in her life. But when she walks in Keith’s room, Lance is there at his desk, balancing on the hind legs of his chair, legs kicked up on the surface and scratching his head in frustration as he focuses on some papers on his lap.

She ends up awkwardly freezing, but she’d already made too much noise with her slippers shuffling into the room, and Lance turns to see who it is.

“Katie,” he greets, giving her a two-fingered salute and a somewhat sleepy smile. “You need something?”

She’s not sure how she’d expected him to react to her presence. Truth be told, her imaginary scenarios had ideas of Lance pretending she doesn’t exist or yelling at her to get out of his face, but he’s acting like there are no issues at all. (Or to her annoyance, like he’s indifferent to the events at Hunk’s party). And it’s simultaneously relieving and disappointing because she’s been messed up over it for _two_ whole weeks.

“Uh, no…” She wrings her hands on her oversized knit pullover, once again wondering why she hadn’t thought to put on a pair of pants or shorts or something. “Keith and I usually watch shit on Thursday nights.”

“Isn’t he on a date?”

“Yeah, but he says he’ll be by later tonight, and I kind of wanted to watch TV right now. Is it alright if I use your bed? It has the better vantage point.”

Lance nods, balancing his pencil on his upper lip as he goes back to perusing his notes. “Be my guest.”

It’s oddly disappointing that he’s chosen not to address their kiss, but she grabs the remote and plops down on his bed, scootching back to lean against the wall as she brings her knees up to her chest. She ends up surfing random channels until she falls on an episode of a College Jeopardy championship which she ends up deciding to watch until the Black Sails rerun comes on.

She finds herself watching Lance for a bit as he sighs under his breath, drums on his knee with his fingers, shuffles papers, rubs the back of his neck, reshuffles papers. Pidge can tell he’s kind of stressed out, and she wonders if it’s really okay for her to be here. Just in case, she lowers the volume even more and turns on the captions too.

The episode has basically just started, with the girl in the middle having a four hundred point lead, the guy to her right at negative one hundred and the other girl on her left at two hundred, but the board hasn’t really been cleared so there are a lot of opportunities for points.

The middle girl chooses Texting Lingo for two hundred, and the question asks about a 5-letter word for pictograms used in texts, one example being the cat face with tears of joy. The guy clicks his buzzer fast, but his response is ‘what are memes’, and Pidge has to laugh at that stupid answer.

“Emoji, dude.” He gets it wrong, his points going down yet again, but no one else guesses and the answer is revealed to be emoji. “These people are too damn nerdy if even I got this right…”

Lance snorts under his breath, flipping boredly through pages of the MCAT practice book on his desk.

The middle girl picks biology for four-hundred and the question asks about a one-celled protozoan that derives its name from the Greek for “change”.

“Amoeba,” Lance answers without missing a beat, glancing over his shoulder with a smug expectant look.

Seconds later, the middle girl guesses the same answer and gets it right.

“Ooh, nice,” Pidge says, giving him some quiet applause. “You just got yourself four hundred bucks.”

He chuckles, shutting his book and setting his notes on top of it. With a loud yawn, he brings his legs back down and stands up, stretching his arms and cracking the joints. His sweatpants are riding low on his hips and she gets a nice flash of his happy trail, and for a brief second, Pidge is reminded of the way his erection had felt pressing against her backside.

She thinks he’s about to leave his room or something, but instead he walks over to his bed and hops on next to her. Pidge stiffens the slightest from the unexpected action, but he doesn’t do anything but sit.

“Wow, that guy is losing by a pretty bad margin.”

“Game just started. He has a chance to catch up.” Pidge rests her arms on top of her knees with a shake of her head. “Although I don’t understand how the hell his score is this bad when the questions are so easy.”

Having gotten control, the girl on the left chooses scientists for two hundred and the question asks which Italian discovered the law of falling bodies as well as the law of the pendulum.

“See what I mean?” Pidge rolls her eyes in boredom. “Galileo, duh.”

She’s right (of course~) and Lance whistles low. “I bet if you got on the show you’d kick a lot of ass.”

“Well that’s a given.” She flips her hair over her shoulder in a faux haughty manner. “I am a genius afterall.”

Lance laughs softly and settles back against the wall with her too, his legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. She finds it weird that she’s just chilling and watching TV with _Lance_ of all people, but it’s not too bad. And she doesn’t actually mind that he’s close enough that the soft fabric of his sweatpants brushes her legs.

“Were you trying to study?” Pidge gives him an apologetic look as she messes with the ends of her hair. “Sorry if I distracted you.”

“Nah. It’s just physics.” His face twists in distaste as he scrubs a hand through his hair. “No big deal.”

It looks like it is troubling him though. But they’re not really friends and it’s none of her business so she doesn’t say anything.

“I thought you’d be working out. Or out partying. It’s Thursday,” she says, trying to make some conversation when it cuts to a commercial break.

Pidge climbs off the bed to grab one of Keith’s drinks in the mini-fridge. Clearly he hasn’t had a chance to replenish his supply though because as she rummages around, there’s nothing there but stupid fizzy waters and vitamin waters and small water bottles. Grumbling under her breath, she ends up grabbing a regular mini bottle of water and tosses one to Lance too which he catches with a grateful smile.

“I have to reschedule for another day. Reprioritise to study for physics.” He uncaps the bottle and takes a long swig. “Plus, Hunk is my Thursday partying buddy but he’s romancing his lady tonight. Making it a whole evening with candles and wine and silk sheets and shit.”

“Rizavi’s hooking up with some cute girl tonight too,” Pidge says as she climbs back on the bed and nestles herself on the spot by his side.

“I walked in on Kinkade and Griffin getting frisky in the bathroom shower.” Lance shudders, his expression entirely disturbed. “Mad respect to James for being able to take _that_ up his ass, but let’s face it, his farts are going to be non-existent poofs of air for the next week.”

Pidge almost chokes on her water, barely catching the dribble with her sleeve before she bursts out laughing. She keeps imagining Rizavi whispering Stallion Dick™ in her mind, and Pidge has no doubt James is going to skip class tomorrow to recover his ailing bunghole.

“Oh man…” She shoves Lance’s shoulder and he bobs back in place with a chuckle. “ _Dude_ , I do not want that mental image!”

Lance leans his head back against the wall, arms resting behind his head. “Bet you ten bucks that James is going to be limping all day tomorrow.”

“Keith too.” Pidge yawns, messing with one of the loose yarns at the bottom of her pullover. “Kinda funny how it seems like a lot of people are out getting laid tonight… What was in tonight’s chicken?”

Lance hums, gaze drifting lazily over to her. “What about you? No hot date later tonight?”

“I’m here with you, aren’t I?” she jokes, knocking her elbow against his side.

“You’re pretty cool, you know?” Lance says genuinely. “The way Keith mentioned you, I thought you’d be one of those uppity, too nerdy to function geeks, but I’m pleasantly surprised.”

She rolls her eyes as she finishes off her water and then tosses it at their recycling bin. And misses by a mile. Lance tosses his too, but it makes it cleanly and she calls him a show off in her mind when he gives her a cheeky eyebrow raise.

Pidge rearranges her legs, stretching them out in front of her too. “Not all nerds have that stereotypical look to them. Some of us even go _wild_ and get unconventional piercings or tattoos.”

A slow, devastating smirk curves up the corners of Lance’s mouth. 

“Yeah… I’ve noticed…”

The low drawl is accompanied by him staring at her legs, and Pidge swallows hard, focusing her gaze on the TV in hopes that maybe watching the college students answer the questions would distract her enough from the guy clearly checking her out.

(It doesn’t).

“Are you planning on calling up one of your usual hookup partners later?” she tries to ask the question in an uninterested voice to reciprocate his earlier question, but she’s on edge by the shift in the air, and so it comes out a little higher-pitched than she’d intended. “Because if so, I can leave. You know, for your privacy.”

“Am I detecting a hint of jealousy?”

Pidge gives him a nasty look. “No… but I’m definitely detecting a hint of _moron_.”

“We should really examine this contradictory behaviour of yours,” Lance responds, his eyes flashing with heat as he shifts to face her. “Because you like to act like you have total disinterest, but that night at the party says otherwise.”

She should have known he would bring it up eventually.

And she’s not about to entertain this conversation.

Pidge tries to jump off his bed because she’s hearing warning sirens in her head that she’s in the lion’s den or that there’s some pit viper with its fangs to her neck. But Lance is faster and he catches her arm and tugs her back. Pidge falls back against his chest, gasping when his hands drop on her shoulders to keep her from running. She can just feel his smirk behind her.

“And you know I’m right.”

“I was drunk!” Pidge tilts her head back to glare at him. “And it wasn’t anything. We were at a party. Shit like that happens because of all the heat in the air.”

“You weren’t drunk. Not then.” He leans down, his mouth dangerously close to her ear. “And if it wasn’t anything, you wouldn’t keep asking Keith to check if I’m in the dorm.”

_Fuck._

Pidge’s eyes go wide, her heart pounding in her chest. “Th-that’s irrelevant.”

“Is it? You know… Keith isn’t going to be here for another few hours,” Lance murmurs in a lust-drenched tone that reminds her of his low voice in her ear while they’d been dancing.

She’s tempted to try to run again, but she’s surrounded by his enticing scent and she can’t think straight. It’s only made worse when his hands slide over the curve of her waist and toy with the hem of her pullover, his fingers brushing her exposed thighs where it’s ridden up. A renewed flare of attraction surges between her legs, and she knows she’s already made up her mind before the thought even manifests.

“I think we’d have a lot of fun if we just got this out of our systems…” he says as he nips her earlobe.

The warm hand on her thigh drifts further in, and she has to close her eyes for a moment when she pictures him dragging his hand between her legs, cupping her, stroking her, his long fingers—

“Just stop talking, Lance.”

Pidge turns and crushes her lips to his, cutting off anything else he might have to say in a wet, desperate kiss. He doesn’t miss a beat at all, reciprocating just as quickly. Lance grasps her chin to hold her in place, and she knows she initiated it, but she absolutely isn’t prepared for the intensity skyrocketing when his tongue dances with her own, isn’t prepared for Lance taking over entirely. It doesn’t take much for him to dominate it, and she gasps when his fingers brush her panties, surprised by how little of a fight she puts up. He kisses with sheer intent, like he has no intention of letting her run again (like he’s committed to ruining her) and Pidge can’t help her embarrassed whimper, her mind hazy as her eyes flutter shut. The way he kisses her overwhelms her, makes her want to lose herself completely in him.

They break apart only long enough for Lance to peel her pullover up and over her head and for him to yank off his t-shirt before they plaster themselves to each other again, soft moans filling the air as he trails his hands down her sides. After that, it’s a flurry of movement and pulling off her bra and tugging down his pants. Pidge is usually the type to decide how things go, but like he’d promised her, he wrests control from her and it confuses her how quickly she lets him.

Her back hits his cool sheets as his weight presses her down, and she obliges by spreading her legs to nestle him in between her thighs. Pidge tangles her fingers in his unbelievably soft hair, moaning from the deep, thorough kiss as his hand slides down and pulls her panties down her legs. His fingers find her cleft, cupping her just the way she’d imagined he would. She’s breathless and sensitive from the way his fingers dance skilfully along her folds, stroking her opening and teasing her by pressing only the tip of his finger inside her. It’s simultaneously enough and not enough and she spreads her legs wider, arching her hips into Lance’s hand.

“ _O-oh_ …” she moans, making the mistake of leaning back to gaze up at Lance.

The fire between her legs scorches her when she meets his darkened gaze. She doesn’t know what it is about Lance bracing himself over her, crotch so close to hers and the outline of his erection straining in his boxers, but it flusters her. She grasps his shoulders and tugs him down to mould their mouths together again, rubbing herself on his hand for more friction.

He smirks against her lips and she wants to wipe the smugness off his face but he drags his lips down her jaw to her neck, sucking her skin in between his teeth. Pidge angles her neck with a soft sigh, and she realises whatever resistance she’d thought she had to him is completely and utterly shattered. The thoughts in her head struggle for coherence and the anticipation excites her from being pinned down under solid muscle. She’s not even fighting being dominated which in a weird way, is a turn on, especially considering up until that point, she’d been pretty adamant about being in control at all times.

This is different. This is new.

And she actually likes this.

“You clean?” Lance murmurs against her neck, looming over her, and she almost misses the question because she’s hardly able to focus on anything other than what he’s doing with his hand and mouth.

“Y-yes…” she stammers, fisting his hair in her hand and finding it hard to think when he’s sucking on a sensitive point of her neck. She can feel the weight of his erection bumping against her thigh and it takes a bit for her to focus on the question and not on her body suddenly zoning in on her need to be fucked. “Get your condom on already.”

He rummages in the mini dresser on the underside of his bed, while Pidge tries to get his boxers off faster. By the time he’s naked and the condom rolled on, Pidge is impatient for him to be inside her. He lowers himself on top of her, grinding his erection slowly against the junction between her legs, and Pidge exhales shakily. She’s already unbelievably wet and he hasn’t even really done anything. It’s kind of crazy to her, and she doesn’t know why she’s reacting to him like this, but her body is electrified and the tension in her so taut, she’s desperate for some release.

“Can you hurry up?” Pidge practically barks and she’s appalled by how needy she sounds. “Lance—”

“Shut up,” he growls, swallowing her words with his mouth as he hikes her legs up on his waist.

She’s ready to snap at him for that, but her words are lost to the sudden spike of pleasure when he drives into her hard and fast without warning. The sharp hitch of her breath from the intrusion has nothing on the pathetic whimpers she tries to hold back when he starts to move, heat igniting under her navel from the fantastic heat of his hard cock. He’s definitely bigger than any of her previous hookups and Pidge gasps, tilting her head back on the pillow and biting into her lower lip from each thrust, hard and deep inside her, and she can’t believe how utterly overwhelming it feels to be filled so completely by him. 

“ _Jesus_ …” Lance pants into her neck, sounding strained. “How the fuck are you so tight?”

Pidge can only let out a strangled moan, her hands scrambling for purchase on his shoulders and back as he picks up the pace, rocking in her in a near perfect rhythm that makes her lightheaded. She wraps her legs high around his waist, hooking her ankles, growing breathless as Lance starts to drop wet, open-mouthed kisses along her neck. She’d severely underestimated Lance, and the more this goes on, the more she recognises how fast that coil is tightening in her.

She hates it, the way he thoroughly fucks her into the mattress, as if proving to her that she’ll never ever find someone else who can fulfil her needs the way he is right now. He anchors his hands beside her, shifting his angle and all of a sudden, Pidge is pretty sure she’s seeing white lights dance in her eyes with every powerful stroke when he snaps his hips. She’s never been able to come from penetration alone before, but she can feel her orgasm building before she can even wrap her mind around it.

_Holy shit._

Everything starts clenching hard as she drowns in pleasure, and she’s not really sure what the hell is coming out of her mouth right now, but all she’s letting out are choked gasps and each breath she tries to take is cut off by another one of his thrusts. Lance’s low groans and his ragged pants on her shoulder are too much and Pidge can’t help but moan, her body quivering with need.

“ _O-oh… oh fu—_ _nnnngh_ ”

It’s impossible to hold back any high pitched moans and whimpers and she sinks her nails into his back, raking them along his skin from how _insanely_ fantastic his rigid, throbbing heat feels dragging along her walls. He’s hitting a sweet spot that hasn’t been touched in so long. It’s way too much, way too fast, the pressure building immeasurably fast, and Pidge knows she’s so screwed when he reaches between them and rubs around her clit. He _barely_ touches her, but Pidge unravels almost immediately, choking on her breath and curling her toes as her orgasm swiftly crashes through her.

“ _Goddamn_ … Katie, did you…?” Lance lifts himself the slightest bit, slowing his pace for a moment and watching her with something scorching in his heated gaze like he can’t believe she’d come that fast.

She’s always been sensitive, but never _that_ sensitive and it’s insane to her. It embarrasses her that she sounds so weak and breathy, that she’d come that quickly, but she needs more and she hadn’t realised how desperately she’d needed this and now that she’s having it, she can’t seem to straighten up her head. Her legs are numb and tingling and she can still feel her need for release tight in her.

She wrenches her eyes shut, clawing the hand in his hair and concentrating. “D-don’t stop… Lance, c’mon. _Faster_.”

Lance leans back down and resumes his pace, rocking into her aggressively, burying himself to the hilt each time and she bites his shoulder to muffle her desire to scream aloud because no doubt he’s going to get smug about making her come that fast, but she’ll never give him the satisfaction of hearing her scream. The low growls Lance lets out as his thrusts start to grow erratic are entirely too sexy. Pidge grows dizzy from their sweat dampened bodies sliding together each time he ruts into her, from the perfect shape of his thick cock in her, from the pressure in her navel cresting sharply. He hits a perfect spot in her and an uncontrollable shudder spasms through her body. She opens her mouth in a silent scream, not able to do much else when her whole body has seized up from the rush of sheer ecstasy.

Lance curses raggedly as he loses his rhythm entirely when she comes, his thrusts jerky until he finally abandons himself to his own pleasure. He groans long and low, his head dropping on the pillow, chest heaving as he struggles to catch his breath. Pidge whines weakly, her legs trembling and breathing coming out in short pants as she’s wracked with aftershocks from her intense orgasm. She can’t do much but splay her hands on his back, not ready to let go yet because for some reason, she thinks she’ll melt into a puddle if she does.

They lay there in stunned silence for a few long moments, Pidge clinging to him, Lance’s slow exhales brushing her ear as the soft sounds from the TV fill the background. It’s a peaceful moment, one so calming and relaxing after something so wild and uncontrolled that Pidge almost feels her lips tugging into a satisfied smile. She feels a little sticky but Lance’s dick feels good in her, and she’s a little too comfortable to move.

“…What the fuck was that?” Lance pulls out of her with a wet squelch, and she can’t help but agree because that had been _too_ much.

(Too perfect).

He lifts his head and meets her gaze as she opens her eyes, her heart stuttering in her chest. His gorgeous eyes are still dark with lust, and through the dazed look on his face, she can see plain as day the unadulterated desire to do this again. He’s still half hard, and she’s still riled up. It hits her right between her legs, begging her to let him take her again, begging her to let him fill her up in the way she’d never known she needed.

“Katie…” Lance mutters, his voice sounding wrecked.

And the gravity of their stupid actions hits her full force. Pidge had succumbed to one bout of temptation and made the dumbest decision in her life.

She needs to get the hell out of the room and _now_.

“Move,” she near whispers in a shaky voice.

Pidge pushes on his shoulders until he backs off and with a show of stability she doesn’t really have, rolls away from him and hops off his bed. Pidge’s breathing is stilted as she grabs her bra from the ground, forcing her fingers to stay still as she clasps the hooks, turns it and pulls on her straps. She can feel Lance’s eyes on her, but she ignores him, rushing to pull on her panties and grab her discarded clothes.

“This is never happening again,” Pidge says as she turns to him, once she’s sure her voice isn’t going to shake.

“…Fine by me,” Lance responds as he pulls off and ties off the condom, and Pidge keeps her gaze staunchly on his face and not his girthy erection.

That infuriating smug arrogance drips from his tone and his demeanour as if yet again, he doesn’t believe a word she’s saying, and Pidge yanks her pullover on roughly, her cheeks blotchy in anger.

What the fuck had she been thinking?

“I mean it,” Pidge hisses, glaring at him as she snatches her phone from the corner of his bed. “Why would it happen again when it wasn’t even that good?”

The small twitch of Lance’s brow has her almost smirking to herself, but his next words don’t.

“Look, Katie…” he says with a chagrined smirk, leaning back against the wall as he rests his hands behind his head nonchalantly. “When you want to stop lying to yourself, you know where I’ll be.”

“ _Get bent_.”

She seethes, shoving her feet in her slippers and storming out of the room, trying not to let anyone meandering in the hallway or the guys chilling in the common room see that her legs are shaking hard. As she uses the restroom, she texts Keith to let him know they’ll have to postpone for another time. She’s not about to go back to that room tonight, where she’s sure Lance is going to keep giving her lewd looks or making suggestive comments alluding to what they’d done.

One of the RAs texts her that they left the on duty phone in Coran’s apartment mailbox because they can’t pass it on to her, so she forces herself in business mode and heads downstairs to pick up the phone for her shift. Somehow, she’s able to make small, random conversation with Coran about how things are going so far, and she must be a much better actress than she’d known because he doesn’t seem to notice anything amiss with her.

But it’s not until she’s back in her room, pulse racing and back pressed to the door that it truly hits her that not fifteen minutes ago, she’d had sex with Lance. That she’d actually let him undress her and touch her and especially that he’d actually been inside her. It’s almost unbelievable and she’s almost inclined to believe maybe it’d been a crazy dream if not for her still tingling lips and the blush on her face that doesn’t seem like it’s going to go away anytime soon and the stuttering beats of her heart and the remnants of the tremors of her intense orgasm travelling down her back every few minutes. And especially the little quivers of need between her legs at the memory of how amazing he’d felt in her.

She can still smell Lance on her even after she showers (and she can still smell the heady stench of sex every time she inhales), and she’s never been fucked like that in her life either. It’s everything she’s dreamed of in sex and more and to her displeasure, she realises Lance had been right when he’d bugged her all those weeks ago about being the guy who can give her what she needs.

She’s so screwed.

…

Her little tryst with Lance refuses to leave her mind for days.

Even when she thinks the reminders finally fade and leave her system, they pop back up when she least expects it at the most inopportune times and leaving her a blushing mess. She finds herself distracted in class, constantly chewing on the end of her pencil as memories of Lance’s hoarse groans and toned chest pressing against hers filter in her head. And by that point, she starts rubbing her thighs together subtly, the flush spreading to her neck and ears. Rizavi is confused by her constant flustered state, and Pidge quickly makes excuses that maybe she’s getting sick.

It’s bad enough that she’s daydreaming in class, but even walking to and from classes or anywhere on campus is uncomfortable because she keeps getting aroused at the most random times. Her panties are in a constant state of semi-moist and Pidge can’t help but wonder if everyone around her can smell the fact that she’s wet.

Contrary to what Lance had said, it’s not out of her system at all. It’s the _furthest_ _thing_ from out of her system, and she almost wishes she had never slept with Lance because always wondering has got to be better than wanting more. She tries to push it out of her mind, but every attempt to ignore it makes it that much stronger.

It’s made far worse when she’s dragging her feet to go meet Keith at the pub on their campus for dinner and when she pushes for the lift, the doors open immediately and she’s greeted by the sight of a couple hooking up inside. The girl is backed up against the wall, one leg on the squatting guy’s shoulder whose face is under her hiked up skirt. She’s obviously enjoying it, if the obnoxious keening moans are any indication, and the guy must really be skilled because the girl seems like she’s about to lose it. Pidge is so stunned by the unexpected indecent public display that she can’t do much but stare.

And with startling clarity, Pidge realises the guy in question is _Lance_ and makes a strangled noise from choking on an exhale.

The girl realises they have an audience and gasps, tugging on Lance’s hair with wide eyes. He pulls away and turns around with a raised brow, clearly not giving one single shit that they’d been caught. The area around Lance’s mouth is wet, and when they make eye contact, he licks his lips slowly of the girl’s fluid. Pidge should be utterly disgusted, but there’s something incredibly hot about the sight that makes heat dance beneath her navel.

“You— you have a room, you moron! Go use it!” Pidge barks, if only to break the steady eye contact he’s holding with her.

(As if he’s trying to tell her that could be her).

“Ah. My bad, _Katie_ ,” Lance purrs close to her ear as he passes her, the girl’s hand in his as they head to his room.

Pidge is still breathing weird when the doors close and she’s headed to the ground floor, because Lance eating out that girl won’t leave her mind.

And it stays firmly lodged in her mind for the next few days to the point she starts having these stupid dreams of the moment in the elevator, only in her dreams, _Pidge_ is the one with Lance’s tongue inside her, sucking her off with his sexy mouth until she can hardly breathe. She always wakes up sweating, her sleep shorts damp and heart pounding away.

As she’s leaving her room one day to head to class, Lance is also walking down the hall and she makes the mistake of meeting his gaze. He doesn’t have any particular expression on his face, but her dreams flit through her mind and her face _burns_. And somehow, she knows he knows what she’s thinking about because a smirk curls up his lips. Pidge spins around and hides in her room to wait until the coast is clear.

For the first time in her entire college career, she’s late to a class, and even worse, she barely takes notes because her mind is elsewhere.

“I can’t keep living like this…” she bemoans, and Rizavi glances at her in confusion.

Pidge can’t come up with any solutions to alleviate her constant arousal but one, and she hates it, but as soon as she returns from her internship that afternoon, she heads straight for her shower. She slips her fingers between her folds, frantically rubbing herself, pumping two fingers in and out and brushing her clit with her thumb.

(And if she’s envisioning a sunkissed lithe-muscled body pressing her into the sheets, long fingers sliding between her legs, a hot mouth sucking on her neck, who cares?).

Just from the memory of having sex with Lance alone, she ends up coming three times, though the tension wanes before she can try for a fourth. She’s a little better by the time she steps out and wraps a towel around herself—still buzzing with need—but she’s settled enough to get some work done for the night. Pidge heads out to start the tedious process of drying the long strands of her hair so they don’t frizz.

And her heart lurches when she sees Lance propped up in her doorway, one shoulder leaning on the frame and his arms crossed in front of his chest.

“How long have you been standing there?”

He shrugs. “Since midway through your shower maybe. Need to talk to you.”

She wrinkles her nose, annoyed that he’s still bugging her even though he’s been plaguing her thoughts this whole week. He’s like a damn infection. She just wants a break from him!

“Why? Go away. I’m busy,” she mutters, rummaging in her plastic toiletry bin for her blowdryer.

“I just felt I should apologise,” Lance says, stepping inside her room and letting the door close behind him. “You know, for the whole lift mishap.”

Pidge glances at him for a second before she averts her gaze quickly. “Wh-why?”

“I understand it’s one of your floor rules.” His voice lowers, layered with something that makes her swallow hard. “No sex in the common spaces, right?”

“Right. Yeah. It’s whatever.” She readjusts her towel, stooping over again to look, only to remember she’d let Keith borrow it. Despite that, she continues looking just so it gives her something to focus on other than Lance. “As long as you don’t do it again. The common room is a space for everyone to use. Just keep in mind that that kind of behaviour is really frowned upon in the real world, you know? Disorderly conduct in inappropriate locations can get you in serious trouble.”

There’s a beat of silence. And then Lance makes a small noise and when she turns to look at him, his shoulders are shaking because he’s _laughing_.

“What?” she snaps as she ties her wet hair up in a loose bun, irritation pricking under her skin.

“You’re a prude.”

“No I’m not!”

“ _Yes_. You are. Goddamn. You sound like my oldest sister.” Lance chuckles, sitting on the edge of her desk and aiming a teasing smile at her. “Have you never wanted to experience the rush of fucking in a place where the chance of people discovering you is high? You’ve never gotten off to the possibility of getting caught?”

“No.” She turns her nose up at him, moving past him to her door because he’s said his piece and now she believes it’s time for him to leave. “Unlike you, I’m not some perv who gets their rocks off on non-consensual voyeurism. And the idea of getting caught sounds appalling.”

“Only because you never live life on the edge. But I can tell you want to.”

She’s absolutely not about to continue this stupid talk with Lance, but as she starts to open her door to get him to leave, he flattens his palm on the wood and shuts it. Pidge goes still, her breath catching in her chest as he slowly reaches past her and pushes the lock in place.

“I heard you in the shower, you know…” Lance murmurs, speaking slowly in her ear and sliding an arm around her waist. “Moaning my name.”

Pidge inhales sharply when he presses himself against her back, especially when she can feel his slight boner. Heat pools in her abdomen when he drops some slow, lingering kisses right behind the shell of her ear, right on a sensitive spot. And she doesn’t realise her legs are trembling in anticipation until Lance stops, his lips smiling against the back of her neck, as if waiting.

“You seem like you’ve been tense all week. Something on your mind?”

And she just knows he’s perfectly fine torturing her until she admits she wants it.

Pidge chews on the inside of her cheek, hating how keyed up she is to the point that she doesn’t even want to say no for the sake of her pride. She’s almost feverish with need and it’s embarrassing.

“This is your fault,” she snaps, “so can you just take responsibility already and fix this?”

Lance hums in approval, nipping her neck with his teeth as he reaches up to cup her breasts through the thin towel. Pidge exhales shakily as he idly pinches her nipples through the fabric, hands steadily kneading her until she’s squirming in his hold to stop the damn teasing. Lance doesn’t seem in a rush at all, perfectly fine with continuing this slow torture despite the fact that Pidge mewls and grinds her ass back against him. The lips sucking lightly on her neck distract her as one of his hands crawls down her torso, settling at her aching centre, and Pidge nearly jumps when his fingers brush her.

“…Unbelievably wet,” Lance says, though he sounds more aroused than amused. “God, you are so sexy.”

She can’t help her moan as he lazily teases her slit, stroking her with his fingers and dragging them back and forth and around in a way that makes it hard for Pidge to do much but grind onto his hand for more. When he pushes his finger inside her, it’s all she can do to keep from coming right then and there. He slips another finger inside her and starts working them, stroking her and steadily pressing against her walls. Pidge’s breathing gets progressively shorter, an overload of stimulation slowly driving her over the edge from his perfect fingers reaching right where she needs it, from the hand squeezing her sensitive breast, tugging and pinching her nipple, from the trail of hot kisses down her neck to her shoulder, from the way he licks at her skin, catching it between his teeth.

He’s somehow managed to find all her most notoriously sensitive spots without even trying and she finds herself getting overwhelmed as his fingers start to move faster, as he curls into her more roughly, as he thumbs her hood around her clit. Pidge can’t help her whimper when Lance moans against her skin. The friction is absolutely perfect and she pulls in air in short, sharp gasps increasing in frequency the faster he pumps into her.

“ _Fuck_ …”

Pidge closes her eyes, falling back against his chest and focusing on the quickly rising surge of heat. Lance passes over her clit a couple times, rubbing it with just enough pressure that Pidge trips into her orgasm before she knows it, nearly crying out from the burst of electricity up her spine. He keeps up his slow, steady motions, helping her ride out the wave until she grabs his wrist. His breathing is hoarse and heavy behind her and Pidge trembles, feeling like she needs more to sate her burning lust.

Pidge crumples forward, both hands braced on the door, her legs weak from the orgasm and breath shuddering as Lance grinds his dick against her ass. All her previous efforts to get herself off have nothing on the way it had felt to have Lance’s long fingers working her, and while annoying, she can’t help but give up trying to fight against what her body is craving. All she can think about is having his throbbing cock deep in her, turning her inside out like he had in his bed.

“ _Lance_ , I need you inside me.”

“Mmm…” he grunts, licking the shell of her ear while pinching her nipple hard. Pidge’s eyelids flutter as she pushes back against his crotch, relishing in the short rush of his breath on her skin. “Don’t have a condom on me.”

“Top right drawer,” Pidge moans, gesturing carelessly towards her desk. “It’s the only one in there so make it count.”

Lance gets the condom, and anticipation hits her hard when she hears him unzip his jeans to slide it on. He spins her around and hoists her up easily onto his hips. Her back hits the door and she lets slip a small, pained gasp, but Lance’ s mouth descends on hers, and when he deepens the kiss, his tongue sliding sensually along hers, it _literally_ takes her breath away. It’s an enormous turn-on, especially when he hooks her knees on his forearms to line himself up and she can feel his impressive erection pushing against her.

“Told ya you were lying to yourself,” Lance murmurs with a small smirk.

“Shut up; you wanted it too.” And she shuts him up by melding their lips together again.

When he jerks his hips forward and slides up inside her, the stretch is so fucking perfect, too much for her not to let out a high-pitched moan. He fucks into her hard, his breathing ragged, their lips sloppily trying to stay connected as he drives into her like a man depraved. It’s not the most comfortable position, but she’s completely overpowered, held in place by his body, and can’t do much more than drape her arms around his shoulders, holding on for dear life because Lance is absolutely making it clear he has no intention to stop until she’s an absolute wreck. On a particularly sharp snap of his hips, Pidge’s head falls back and hits the door _hard_ while a breathless moan escapes her lips.

“Shhh…” Lance breathes out in a gravelly voice, clearly not meaning it at all because his eyes are dancing. “There are a bunch of guys in the common room. If you’re too loud they’ll definitely figure out you’re getting fucked.”

But even so, he doesn’t slow down. Lance holds her legs farther apart, pushing her knees up closer to the door as he shifts his angle. He thrusts harder, more precise, more frantic and before she knows it, her room is filled with his ragged growls and low moans and her broken exhales and punctuated gasps for air. Her bun falls out of the scrunchie, hair landing around them in a curtain and splashing them with some water. He bites her earlobe, scrapes his teeth down her neck until she can’t stop whimpering.

It’s like a dam bursts in her, rushing over her faster than she can prepare herself and she digs her nails into his back because she can’t handle it at all. Pidge loses herself to the intense sensation and cries out, too overcome with ecstasy to remind herself to quiet down her sounds. Lance comes not too long after, his unsteady breath warm and erratic as he thrusts a few more times before he stills completely. She holds onto him more tightly, loving the feel of his cock pulsing inside her as he relieves himself.

Lance is quivering hard and for a moment, she’s worried he’s going to drop her, but he shifts his hold so she can wrap her legs around his waist. He braces his forearms on the door, leaning in and closing his lips over her lips in a sloppy, lazy kiss as they come down from the high.

When they can finally breathe right again, Lance sets her on the ground though she has to lean heavily against her desk while her legs stop shaking. Pidge rearranges her towel as Lance takes care to get the condom off without getting cum everywhere. The wetness between her legs is uncomfortable and she kind of laments the fact that she’ll have to take another shower at some point tonight.

“You, uh… do you want a towel?” she asks, shuffling her foot in her fuzzy rug, unsure what exactly is going to happen now. She’d fucked him twice now. It’s quite obvious all her talk about not wanting to have sex with him at all is just that: all talk. “Or like, do you want to use my bathroom to shower or something?”

“It’s fine. I’m about to go to the rec centre to swim anyway. Gonna shower when I get back though.” He tucks himself into his boxers and zips up his jeans again before giving her a playful smirk and waving around the condom. “You’re welcome to join me if you wish.”

Pidge turns away from him as she considers his offer, catching sight of her reflection on her bathroom door and appalled to see her face is completely flushed and lips plush and kiss swollen. At some point tonight she’ll have to hit up Rizavi for her version of the notes from today’s class. But really, she _has_ finished all of her tasks for the day and her schedule is still in order that if she skips drying her hair to study her lecture notes from the day, by the time Lance should return, she’ll have everything done.

“Text me when you get back…” she mutters, putting her hair back into its loose bun and then wrapping one of her smaller towels around it. It’ll get wet by the end of the night again, but for now, she doesn’t want the water droplets landing on her notes. “Now get out and make sure no one sees you.”

Pidge catches Lance’s reflection giving her a wide eyed look of surprise which makes her chuckle to herself.

“What, no talk about how we can’t do this again?”

“I changed my mind. It’s happening again.” She raises a brow at him. “But only if I get my work done and clock’s ticking so leave already.”

“I knew you’d cave.”

She rolls her eyes when Lance gets that smug expression on his face again, and he salutes her in farewell as he leaves her room, carefully checking to make sure no one in the hallway will see him.

Pidge thinks she’s being a little reckless, but after sex like that, she’s not ready to stop this just yet. There _are_ benefits to stress relief of this sort, and on top of that, Lance has quickly proven to her that she actually enjoys sex since he knows exactly what he’s doing. The pros outweigh the cons for her.

Much later though, as she’s limping to the stairs from the vending machine with her bag of mini-Oreos for her study snack, she passes by Kinkade heading into the laundry room, who’s wearing a shit-eating grin on his face.

“Having a great evening, Pidge?”

She narrows her eyes at him as she pops one of the mini cookies in her mouth. Something about his expression is not right.

“Yeah…? Why?”

“It’s just, earlier tonight, a couple of us heard you hooking up with someone, and you were kind of loud. We’re all just glad you’re enjoying college though. You’ve seemed pretty stressed out lately, but I guess you got that sorted out.”

Her flush is hot on her face as she excuses herself rapidly to leave the basement level, much to his amusement.

It’d be embarrassing as fuck if anyone finds out that she’d slept with Lance so she decides she needs to keep it on the hella down low.

…

“Lance, if we’re doing this, we need to set some sort of boundaries or rules or whatever,” Pidge says, a little distracted by Lance’s lips travelling slowly down her torso as he kisses a path down her body. She leans back against the shower wall with a soft sigh. “It’s just something chill. I’m not expecting anything out of it. I find you physically attractive, but I have no interest in dumb guys.”

“Who are you calling dumb?” His grip on her thighs tightens for a second as he glances up at her from his crouch. She can’t lie that she loves the way he looks like this, dripping wet from the hot water, hair plastered to his head, a mischievous gleam to his gaze. “And don’t worry. I’m not into harpies either.”

“Asshole.”

Lance grins deviously, putting a hand on her abdomen to hold her against the shower wall, and Pidge moans softly when he puts his mouth back on her, pressing languid kisses right where she wants to feel him most. He explores her with his tongue, and she sinks her hands into his hair as he lifts her leg onto his shoulder to get better access. It annoys her how quickly he’s able to figure out what gets her strongest reactions, but she gives up on holding back when two fingers slide inside her, curling just right, and he cups his mouth around her clit to suck on her. Pidge rolls her hips harder against his mouth, biting her lip hard to keep from crying out.

Someone walks in as he’s relentlessly targeting a sweet spot that makes it practically impossible for her to hide her noises, and she almost gasps.

Whoever it is is going through a long bedtime routine and clearly shaving, but Lance doesn’t seem deterred and redoubles his efforts to make her come. Pidge can hardly catch her breath, and it’s a complete exhilarating rush she’d never expected to feel. It’s crazy to her that there’s someone else in the bathroom with them right now and that she’s in a shower stall behind a curtain getting eaten out.

She catches the dangerous look Lance gives her as he presses his tongue in her, and it becomes a fight between them for Lance to try to make her make noise while Pidge tries her damned hardest to stay as silent as she can.

(She wins. _Barely_ , but still wins. Hah).

But he definitely makes sure she can’t hold back anything when he fucks her on his desk from behind afterwards. And she can’t deny that maybe this fuck buddy thing with Lance isn’t the worst idea she’s ever had.

It’s kind of fun being with him like this.

Don’t get her wrong; he’s still annoying as fuck and she doesn’t particularly like him. But he’s insanely good at sex and insanely good with his hands and insanely good with his mouth and she finds him sexy and she _is_ attracted to him at a base, primal level, so why not take advantage of that opportunity?

…

“I would like to remind my Arus resident advisors,” Coran says, pointing to his whiteboard with the list of protocol, “that while your dorm is known for its rambunctious reputation, it’s important for you to remember that your goal is to try to take preventative measures to avoid things like fires happening. Or bags of vomit splatting the sidewalk. I know it’s hard, but please. Do your best to keep the incidents to a minimum.”

A bunch of other RAs turn to Pidge and her fellow Arus prisoners with sympathetic looks, and she sighs. Coran is asking for too much. She’s lucky if she can even go three days without something being torn up or broken.

“Alright. So that concludes protocol. Anyone have anything to add?”

No one says anything, so Coran flips a page on his clipboard with a decisive nod.

“Good. Let’s talk about sex. I understand many college students are sexually active. I would like to request that you all offer your residents a small talk and meeting on the importance of protection and safety…”

Pidge tunes out the rest of the speech they’ve all heard about ten thousand times at this point. Her mind drifts to happier thoughts of how she’d spent a couples nights of her week. Tingles run up her back at the memories.

It’s not even just the fact that sleeping with Lance makes her reach heights she’d never had before with anyone else. He’s a very generous fuck buddy—completely addicting—and she can’t think of one instance where he hadn’t spent an inordinate amount of time making sure she comes first. She always comes out of their meetups feeling refreshed which would honestly be great for tonight because she’s a little tense.

She has a lot of work to finish up, but right now she can only think of one thing. Usually they make plans well in advance to meet up but Lance is a pretty spontaneous guy. Besides, a little sex won’t hurt, even if it’s not one of their usual planned days.

By the time the meeting ends and Coran dismisses them, she’s pretty much made up her mind and texts him.

_Where are you?_

“Pidge, we’re trying to go out and see a movie tonight,” Luka says, jerking her thumb towards the other two sophomore RAs. “Feel like leaving the books for a bit?”

Even if she did have free time, she’d rather use it in _other_ ways.

She smiles apologetically. “I already made plans. But if you guys do this again sometime soon, let me know, kay?”

Her phone buzzes.

**🍆 🍆🍆 **

**> >quickie? ur room?**

She’s glad Lance can pretty much read her mind, and if she powerwalks back to her dorm, who cares?

The second Pidge walks in her room, before the door even closes fully, Lance yanks her forward by the waist, claiming her mouth in a fiery kiss that makes all thoughts flit out of her mind. Pidge can’t help but grip his collar, rising to her tiptoes to match the intensity. He anchors her to him, clawing his fingers in her hair and tugging her head back to suck on her neck and graze his teeth on her skin the way she likes it. Pidge sighs as he walks her backwards into her dresser, his hands grasping her ass as he picks her up and deposits her on the surface. She sandwiches his hips inside her thighs, spreading her legs wider to accommodate him. They grind against each other slowly, rasping breaths leaving their mouths at the amazing friction.

“I have an exam tomorrow,” he grunts, eyes blazing with heat and his voice low and gravelly. “Gotta make this fast.”

“Yeah.” She nods, whimpering from a particularly hard buck of his erection against her. “Me too.”

His lips find hers again, no time wasted as he yanks off her jeans and panties while she fumbles to open the button of his pants to pull him out of his boxers. She licks at his neck, sucking on the skin under his jaw and below his ear and feels proud of herself when she catches his fingers clumsily pulling his condom on. Pidge can’t stop touching him, fingers drifting between them to palm his erection, splaying underneath his t-shirt to feel the ridges of his abs. Lance really is abnormally attractive to her in a way no other guy has been before and she’s helpless to it. She can’t get enough of him.

“Copping a feel, are ya?” Lance mutters with a cheeky grin, one hand stroking her hip as he leans his other hand behind her for leverage.

She has a perfect riposte crafted on the tip of her tongue until he drives inside her in one long stroke without warning and after that, her words die in her throat when he’s slamming his hips into hers again and again, going hard and relentless. Pidge’s breath hitches, her body wracked by intense ripples of pleasure. She tangles a hand in his hair, her words incoherent from each rhythmic thrust stealing her breath. It feels unbelievably good, and she whimpers, throwing her head back as he slams into her harder and harder still.

It doesn’t matter how many times she’s had Lance at this point. She’ll never get enough of the way he fucks her.

She can’t help her desperate, strangled moan when Lance pushes her down onto the dresser, moving one leg onto his shoulder and hooking his arm under her other. He pins both her wrists above her head with one hand, every sharp snap of his hips stronger, deeper, more intense than the last until the furniture is creaking underneath them and he can’t contain his grunts of effort. It’s wild and frantic and everything she’s needed as the pressure in her careens over the threshold. Pidge cries out from the absolute bliss of the feel of his cock, and soon enough, her body quivers from the familiar feeling of her orgasm bursting through her. Lance groans in satisfaction, jerking unevenly until he abandons himself to his own pleasure, finally letting her go as he collapses on her.

Every nerve in Pidge’s body is electrified, sensitive and still trembling from the aftershocks. It takes both her and Lance a while to catch their unsteady breaths.

“That was… perfect… _holy shit_ ,” she pants, patting his back in thanks. “Just what I needed. You’re amazing.”

“Pleased to be… of service, _hermosa_.” Lance exhales shakily against her neck, slowly sliding out of her as he softens.

“Moron.”

The tired little crooked smirk he gives her when he lifts his head is actually kind of cute, and Pidge pulls his mouth down to hers to capture it in a slow, lazy kiss.

…

“Pidge…?” Rizavi says, waving her pasta fork in front of Pidge’s face and getting a small glob of Alfredo sauce on her nose. “You’re zoning out again.”

Pidge wipes it off, her cheeks flushing red as she realises Ina and Luka and her other engineering buddies at her table are staring at her in worry. She’s been like this all morning, truth be told, but it’s hard to hide during lunch.

It’s not her fault though!

She and Lance have started hooking up about four times a week now, and to be honest, time with Lance actually fits nicely in her schedule. He doesn’t disturb her or bug her with dumb texts outside of when either of them is DTF and they’ve worked out a system of how and where to meet up so no one ever suspects what they’re doing. It’s more convenient to screw in his room because of the RA open door policy during her on-duty hours, but Keith is around sometimes, so more often than not, they don’t really have a choice but to risk it in her room.

(She’s become quite adept at hiding him in her bathroom with seconds to spare).

Contrary to their unspoken rules though, she’d let Lance stay the night before and sleep in her bed overnight (though sleeping had very little to do with anything that had happened under her covers). That morning he’d devoted extra time to getting her off after she’d mentioned offhand that she’d been a little sore from the work she has to do for her internship. He hadn’t even fucked her but his tongue and mouth and fingers had been more than enough to bring her consecutive orgasms to the point she could hardly form actual words. By the time he’d had to leave to get ready for his own class, Pidge had still been a trembling mess on the bed, clutching the bed sheets and failing to make sense of time.

(Something to remember me by, he’d said, with a stupid wink that made her want to punch him in the face).

And he’d succeeded.

She’d completely blanked out during her classes and now she’s blanking out during lunch. Pidge prides herself on managing her urges well enough, but they’re a little strong right now, and she wonders if she should bother hitting Lance up. It’s the middle of the afternoon and though she doesn’t have her next class until three, she and Lance never meet up during the day. It’s always at night when everyone is too busy to bother her for RA stuff or when most everyone has gone to sleep.

It’s sincerely annoying how much she likes fucking Lance. But strange enough, it’s exactly what she’d needed to round out her stuffed up life.

“Sorry… just thinking about what to write for an essay…”

Rizavi eyes her suspiciously, though from the way the corners of her mouth lift, Pidge knows that cogs are turning in her mind. “You know… last week, I noticed you had some very intense bruises on the back of your thighs. Kinda looked like fingerprints to be honest.”

“I fell,” Pidge lies, finishing off her asparagus quickly.

“You got _laid_! She got laid,” Rizavi concludes, leaning over and announcing it to their little group, much to their amusement. Pidge nearly chokes on the mashed potatoes she’d put in her mouth. “I knew you seemed a lot less stressed! Who’s the dude?”

“Quiet down!” Pidge hisses around a mouthful of mashed potatoes and Rizavi wrinkles her nose. “And I’m _not_ screwing anyone!”

“Mmhmm… and my pussy ain’t popping,” she says sarcastically to laughs around the table. “C’mon Pidge. Tell us the truth.”

Pidge hurries to finish the rest of her salmon too, in a rush to get her food done because this conversation is not ideal.

She hears Lance’s familiar mellow laugh as she’s guzzling down the rest of her orange juice and when she glances up, near their table, Lance is with a group of his friends as they head out of the dining hall. When he walks by her table they make brief eye contact, and though he doesn’t say hi or anything, he gives her a discreet up nod as he leaves, his eyes shining in mirth like he knows exactly what she’s thinking about. She jerks her gaze away immediately. No way is she giving him the satisfaction of thinking she’s craving him or something.

(She most certainly is).

Either way, she really needs to rub one out.

“You’re blushing!” Rizavi gushes, a wide grin on her face. “ _See_? We know you’re hooking up with someone. Who is it?”

“I have to go.” Pidge stuffs her textbook in her bag and slides her writing utensils in haphazardly as she stands.

“Aha! You’re going to your dick appointment, aren’t you?!” Rizavi shouts so loud that other people in the dining hall turn to glance at them.

“ _Riz_ , shut up!”

Pidge snatches up her empty tray and her bag and hurries to leave.

…

It’s weird to Pidge how easily she’d shucked away her reservations about sex once she’d started doing stuff with Lance. They’d fucked in the laundry room once, on a time crunch because one of the machines hadn’t had that much time left in the wash cycle. She can honestly say it’d been one of the most intense nights they’ve ever had, and Pidge still can’t get over how fast her heart had started beating when they’d had to rush to get their clothes in order because someone swiped their key card to get in. As strange as it seems, she’s really starting to enjoy the whole risky sex thing.

The old her would have never agreed to something like that.

(But then again, the old her hadn’t gotten dicked down by Lance McClain’s Magic Cock™, so there is that…)

On a day Pidge needs to finish up some research for a project, she heads to the School of Engineering library before her afternoon lab. Lance is there, charming the receptionist as Pidge walks in, and she’s tempted to say something patronising or throw a pencil at him. Instead she pushes her glasses primly up her nose, ignoring him entirely as she heads over to the reference materials in a more secluded section. She’s pretty sure he’d seen her, but it doesn’t make a lick of difference to her.

Fucking or not, Lance will always be a total flirt and utter nuisance.

She’s deep in the throes of checking one of the old textbooks for information on parallel algorithms for system programming when someone moulds themselves to her back, fingers sliding around her midriff under her t-shirt and toying with her piercing.

“I was hoping you would show up,” Lance says in a low voice, tugging her earlobe in between his teeth. “You look sexy as fuck…”

It’s kind of annoying how her mood immediately lifts and her heart skips in excitement, and honestly she should just ignore him because she has a ton of shit to finish, plus it’s the middle of the day, but her mind doesn’t want to focus on her work right now.

“You’re only saying that because I have my glasses on, you moron.” She knows all about his sexy librarian fantasy, although she is flattered that he’d apparently been waiting for her.

“Guilty as charged…” He drops slow, wet kisses along the column of her neck and Pidge lets out a shuddering exhale. Lance is partially erect and she takes pride in the fact that it’s because of her. “I want to fuck you against this bookshelf.”

“There’s a guy in the corner,” she whispers, though she turns around in his hold and wraps her arms loosely around his shoulders. The guy with the goofy glasses in the corner seems pretty intensely focused on his Minecraft game, so she doubts he’d notice, but better safe than sorry. Anything they do has to be fast. “And people come to this area to get other reference material. There’s literally no time for that. But…”

Pidge checks to make sure there isn’t anyone else in their general area and once she’s sure the coast is clear, rises up on her toes and closes the distance between their lips. Lance tilts his head to deepen it, pressing her up against the bookcase and hands sliding down to cup her ass, but she pulls away, shaking her head and folding in her lips to keep from laughing at the cute confusion on his face.

He definitely _gets it_ though when she slips her hands under his shirt, slowly dragging them up and down his chest and abdomen until she unzips his pants and reaches into his boxers to pull him out. Lance’s eyes darken with lust and she loves the quiet, shuddering breath that escapes his lips as she loosely pumps him, stroking his thick cock as he grows hard against her hand. It’s actually pretty fascinating watching him swell and rise, almost in time to a heartbeat.

“Katie, uhh…” Lance rubs the back of his neck, brows lifting in mirth. “Not that I’m not finding this interesting in and of itself, but…”

“He’s kind of cute. Like a long alien mushroom.” Pidge pats the head as if it’s a dog. “Make him wave at me!”

Lance sighs, trying to keep himself from laughing, but he does move his dick in a little wave, and Pidge snorts and snickers to herself. Someone trudges by the reference section and Lance lets go of her, turning away subtly so they can’t see he’s got his dick out.

When the coast is clear, Pidge sinks to her knees and takes him into her mouth without warning, clearly catching Lance off guard. She uses her saliva to slicken him up with her tongue and runs her tongue along the sensitive base of his shaft. Lance grips the shelf so hard his knuckles turn white. His ragged exhales make her stomach coil with desire.

Pidge had sucked off her ex-boyfriend a few times—hated it every time—and she’d never understood the appeal of wrapping her mouth around some rubber-looking, floppy, might-as-well-be-a-chew-toy appendage, but she kind of loves giving Lance head.

Or rather, making such a cocky guy lose his composure from some well-placed licks and sucks.

But honestly, he has a really nicely shaped dick and impeccable hygiene so she never has to worry about any ghastly tastes or smells and his skin is soft and smooth in her mouth. She loves the way he jerks a little desperately in her mouth, his hands pulling on her hair hard enough to hurt, usually messing up whatever style she has that day. She loves his sexy little growls and curses, but especially how he groans from deep in his throat and struggles to catch his breath when she finishes him off. And she actually doesn’t mind the way he tastes.

“Katie, I’m about to— _fuck_ …” he grunts in a rough voice, hunching over when she licks at the underside of his cock.

His muscles clench as she takes him in her mouth as far as she can go, sucking with every one of her pumps and growing increasingly more wet as she watches Lance lose the struggle to keep his head on his shoulders. She cups his balls, using her other hand to grasp his shaft and squeeze him as she twists, just the way she knows will finish Lance off. His hips jerk into her mouth like he can’t help it, and shortly after, he comes in her mouth with a broken, shaky moan, coating her tongue with his hot cum. She laps at him lazily as she swallows, pumping him lightly until his quivers stop and he slumps against the shelf with a breathy chuckle.

“Holy shit.” Lance closes his eyes briefly, and Pidge lets him go with a crude pop before she rises to her feet. She lifts her shirt to wipe off anything on her lips, absolutely loving the daze in his eyes. “Your mouth is literally going to kill me one day.”

“My apologies.” She blinks up at him from under her lashes as she rearranges her ponytail and makes sure again that there’s nothing on her face. “I have to go finish my research. Wait three minutes and then leave this area.”

“Leave? I can’t even stand up straight right now,” Lance sighs, his expression all sated and face flushed as he puts himself back in his clothes.

He looks really adorable like that, kind of soft, and Pidge steps up to him and gives him a small, lingering kiss on the mouth.

“Something to remember me by,” she murmurs before letting him go completely and sauntering away with the textbook, hips a-swaying.

As she walks out of the reference section, she catches the eye of the guy with the goofy glasses and he’s gawking at her with a dropped jaw. Pidge clears her throat, her neck flushing as she walks faster, though when she takes the book to the counter to request page copies, she can’t stop her stupid little grin.

…

Pidge loves Rizavi—she _truly_ does—but her best friend has absolutely no qualms thirsting over people right in front of them, and when she somehow finds out that Kinkade and some of his friends play pickup on Wednesday nights at the rec centre, that’s that.

Rizavi drags Pidge to the gym to watch the guys play basketball because apparently they take off their shirts and she wants to see the outline of Kinkade’s Stallion Dick™ when his shorts get all sweaty. Normally, Pidge will spend her late Wednesday evenings leisure reading (or riding Lance) but she sucks it up to support her friend’s questionable behaviour.

While Rizavi is salivating over the guys, Pidge leaves the courtside and wanders around other parts of the rec centre, turned off by the stench of sweat just hanging suspended in the air like a bubble. She’d only come here once really when she found out the school had a physical education requirement which could take the form of a dance or exercise science class or if they attended at least 12 sessions of any free exercise programmes the rec centre offered. She’d taken care of it immediately the first six weeks of her freshman year, going to a meditation and a walking class early every Saturday and Sunday morning with the old folk because she _hates_ physical exercise and she refuses to devote any more time to it when she has more important matters to attend to in her curriculum.

As she passes by the doors to the pool, she pauses for a beat, curious to see if Lance is there this late at night. She knows he used to be a competitive swimmer in high school and she knows he comes here often since it’s one of his stress relieving methods.

A sharp wave of crisp chlorine hits her nose as she walks in, the loud grumbling of the AC unit filling the air along with the splashing as a few people move in the water. Pidge sits on one of the bleachers, smiling at the old man sweeping the pool deck as she scans the few people in the water, and sure enough, in the lane closest to her is Lance swimming laps at a leisurely pace.

He’s almost like a mermaid in the water, swimming smoothly, every stroke of his arms and kick of his legs trained and practiced. Her eyes are drawn to the smooth lines of his back, the ridges and cords of his arms and legs that tighten and release from the power he puts in every motion to drive through the water.

It’s really hot. It reminds her of the way his muscles tense under her hands when he’s got her on her back, and Pidge discreetly rubs her thighs together.

Rizavi texts her just when she starts formulating a daydream about Lance fucking her in a corner of the pool.

💕✨ **LOVER** 😍 💖

**> >where’d you run off to?!?! you better not have deserted me!!!!!**

Pidge rolls her eyes as she responds.

_Still at the rec. Just text me when you’re done being a thirsty ho._

💕✨ **LOVER** 😍 💖

**> >back atcha 👅 **💦

“You’re a long way from home, Katie,” Lance says suddenly. “Come here to see me?”

Pidge blinks and looks up and Lance is resting at the edge of the pool, goggles pulled up on his head and his arms folded on the deck. He’s just watching her calmly, his gaze heady, and need flutters between her legs.

“I was in the neighbourhood,” she mumbles, playing with the ends of her hair.

“That so…”

She shrugs, though she can’t tear her gaze away as Lance pulls himself out of the pool, water slick on his skin, dripping down the toned ridges of his abdomen and his lean, muscular legs and his suit is plastered to his skin so it’s not hard to see the outline of his dick. Pidge is pretty sure she’s actually drooling over his perfect abs flexing as he catches his breath. He takes off his goggles in one practiced motion and slicks his wet hair back and Pidge swallows hard, her body crying over the fact that she can’t drape herself all over Lance like a leech.

(Oh how she really wants to be a bead of water trickling down his chest).

Lance is already hot, but wet Lance…?

“Did you need something?” he asks in a low voice, brow raised as he walks over to her.

“I… umm… I do now…” she breathes out, tugging on her collar because even chilled from the AC it feels too damn hot in this room.

Without a word, Lance takes her hand and drags her to the adjacent locker room before kissing her senseless against his rented locker. He tastes like chlorine and his skin is slick with pool water, but Pidge can’t keep her hands off him, groaning into his mouth and trying to pull him as close as humanly possible.

Their mouths hardly separate except for him to strip off her dress and her underwear and his speedo and then they’re stumbling to one of the shower stalls and heavily making out under the steamy water, grabbing whatever parts of the other they can, their hands all over the place like they both just can’t get enough.

It’s all so fast and frantic as he turns her around, as he fingers hers until she’s a trembling mess, as he hikes her foot up to rest on the bar, and then he’s thrusting hard between her thighs, his cock rubbing against her folds. Pidge gasps each time his head brushes her clit, rubbing desperate circles on herself with her own fingers while he sucks on her neck and fondles her breasts roughly with both hands. She turns her head and meets his lips in a sloppy, tongue-filled kiss over her shoulder and she feels completely surrounded and the friction of his cock rubbing against her clit is too much and in no time at all Pidge comes _hard_ , her cry echoing in the empty locker room. Lance explodes shortly after, shivering as his spunk spurts out and hits the shower wall in front of her. She desperately wishes that he could be inside her, but they have no waterproof condoms and while her head _is_ lust-addled, she knows better than to risk it all.

They languidly make out against the shower wall after that, Pidge hoisted on his waist and giggling against his lips every so often, feeling giddy in a way she can’t explain. She can feel his cock against her entrance and it’s enough for now, but she knows when they both get back to the dorm, he’s probably not going to leave her room tonight.

“Feel better?” Lance asks, kissing her softly and then kissing a path along her jaw to her ear. 

“Hardly,” Pidge snarks, grinning as she toys with his shell necklace. “Still too aroused, and you didn’t do enough.”

“…Sounds to me like you just need a cold shower.” The mischievous dancing of his eyes makes her smile drop.

And he turns the faucet and freezing cold water blasts out, chilling her to the bone. Pidge screams, their laughter mingling and echoing in the empty locker room as she tries to fight out of his hold, but he refuses to let her go.

“Lance! I hate you so much!”

By the time she returns to Rizavi, her hair hasn’t dried completely but she’s bouncing on her toes and her body is still thrumming with electricity.

Rizavi eyes her sideways as she plops down beside her. “Where’d you go anyway?”

Pidge hums, sitting on her hands and rocking side by side. “Just got acquainted with some areas of the rec centre.”

Intimately.

“Hmm. Maybe try to come up with a better lie next time? Because there’s a hickey on your neck, ya thirsty ho _._ ”

Pidge slaps her hand to it, her face flushing hot as Rizavi starts laughing.

…

Things in Pidge’s life start to follow an interesting pattern, and before she knows it, Lance becomes just as much of a staple in her weekly activities as her studying is. So when she doesn’t hear from Lance for a couple days, it throws her off. She thinks it’s only a temporary setback because he’s busy, but days turn into a week and usually he’ll text her at least once to see if she wants to meet up, so she gets a little anxious. It’s not like she can force him to stick to their arrangement if he doesn’t feel like it, but still…

It’s not like him to be so distant. Especially not to her.

“So how’s your semester going? You know, aside from dropping physics to take geology. How’s your room life? Things good with you and Lance?” Pidge asks Keith as nonchalantly as she can, though she has ulterior motives. “Asking as your dedicated RA, of course.”

She does like hanging out with Keith of course, so they’d met up at the fun little campus event run by one of the volunteer-based clubs. They get to paint flower pots for the flowers that would be used to decorate an underfunded school in their city. He’s been pretty busy, so it’s been a lot of fun hanging out with Keith and occasionally dipping her brush in some paint and brushing it on his cheek. He has a nice rainbow now.

But she kind of wants to see Lance and he hasn’t answered her joking _‘u up?’_ text from last night (which worries her because he always at least sends a laughing emoji even if he’s not free) so she wants to know what’s going on.

“Semester is meh. Geology is meh. Roommate is pretty upset though.” Keith holds up his little flower pot, and he’s pretty much replicated Starry Night by Van Gogh on it. Pidge can’t help but stare at her own severely lacking one with its lopsided polka dots and the rainbow coloured stripes underneath. “Lance has been sulking around like an annoying little shit. He’s acting more emo than I am.”

“What happened?” she asks, keeping up her painting so she doesn’t seem overeager to know.

Keith shrugs, lifting up his pot to show one of the event coordinators who takes a picture. “I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me, but he came back from some meeting like a week ago and tore up his exams. And then he went on a long run. I had to leave for work, but when I got back, he’d turned into me on a _good_ day, so that’s how I know it’s bad.”

Pidge frowns, still concerned and wanting to ask more questions. But if she keeps pushing for info Keith might get the wrong idea so she doesn’t say anything.

But Lance’s current melancholy stays in her head well into the rest of the day. She has a staff meeting at Coran’s apartment that evening so she can’t go to Lance. And then the next day, she has class and her internship but she’s on duty late at night and she knows Keith is with his sugar daddy for the evening so when she finally does get some free time, she raps her knuckles tentatively on their door. She can hear noise from the TV inside but no one answers.

“Lance? You in?” she calls out, testing the knob, and the door opens with a click.

There’s a noncommittal grunt from inside and she trudges in the dark room. Lance is slouching on his bed playing Killbot, gaze trained on the TV, but he doesn’t acknowledge her at all which does sting a little. She stands awkwardly by his desk, not sure what to say. Even with the lack of light, save for the flashing from the video game on the TV, she can easily see from his demeanour and the dark look on his face that he’s pretty down.

“I’m not really in the mood to fuck right now,” he finally mutters after she stands there staring at him for a long awkward minute.

Pidge scoffs, resting her hip on the back of his chair. “What? I didn’t come here for that.”

Lance doesn’t say anything in response, and she waits for several long seconds, listening to the battle noises of the video game before she starts to get irritated with his reticence.

“I came here to check on you because Keith said you’ve been down.”

“Okay.” Lance snorts derisively, something entirely rude and Pidge’s nose wrinkles. “What, do you want me to clap?”

“What is your problem?” She purses her lips, hurt spreading through her chest that he’s brushing her off. She knows they’re not really friends or anything, but they’re cool with each other so she doesn’t understand where this sudden asshole behaviour is coming from. “I’m trying to be nice.”

“Good for you. Who cares though? At the end of the day whether you’re nice or not doesn’t change anything,” he responds dismally, eyes still focused on the TV as he doles out a combo on the game controller.

“Well if you would just tell me what’s wrong I could try to understand—”

“You’re a fucking genius, so no offence but there’s no way _Little Miss Perfect_ can understand what I’m going through.”

Pidge’s mouth snaps shut, her chest tight from the undeserved aggression. Yes, she doesn’t necessarily have problems and yes, her life functions smoothly but that’s because she takes extra care to make sure that it is that way. Whatever his damage is has nothing to do with her and she’s offended that he thinks it’s okay to take whatever stupid feelings of insignificance he might have out on her. She tries not to think about the fact that she’s more upset that he doesn’t seem to trust her at all.

Even after everything.

“You know what? I don’t even know why I bothered to come here. Forget it.”

She starts to storm off, but when she sets her hand on the door handle and Lance still hasn’t moved one inch nor has he said anything, her shoulders slump. It’s not like she cares too much about this, but Lance not being… well, _Lance_ makes her feel some type of way. She can admit that his smile brings people’s moods up (hers too) and she doesn’t want him to stay upset like this. With an aggravated sigh, she turns back around, and she stomps over to the TV and yanks the cables of the game system right out of their ports. The screen goes grey and fuzzy immediately.

Lance glowers at her indignantly. “What the fuck—”

“Listen here, you mopey son of a bitch.” Pidge moves to stand right in front of him, snatches the controller right out of his hand, and tosses it on the floor by the game system. He’s definitely annoyed, but she plants her hands on her hips, undeterred by his ire. “Right now, me _Katie_ , doesn’t want to talk to you because you’re acting like a dick, but at the end of the day, I’m still your RA and your wellbeing is my responsibility so I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s up.”

“Mopey son of a bitch, huh?” He lets out a humourless laugh and runs a hand through his hair. “Oh, it’s nothing major. Just that I’ll apparently never amount to anything and my medical career dreams are shot to hell.”

“What? Lance, you haven’t even gone to professional school yet and you’re still a junior. What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about goddamn _physics_. It’s killing me!” Lance says hotly, aggravation laced in his tone as he grips the strands of his hair. “I-I mean I thought I had it, but it’s like… every time I think I get the hang of it my fucking scores come back looking like shit. I’m pretty much fucked now!”

“ _Lance_ ,” Pidge snaps, grasping his shoulders and shaking him a bit until he’s looking up at her. It pains her that his normally vibrant blue eyes look so stressed and aggrieved. This isn’t like him at all. “Calm down some and start from the beginning.”

He lets out a long breath, staring at the wall behind her head, his lips twisted unhappily. “The semester is over in less than two months and I only have one exam left and the final exam to get my grade up. My score is so low that at best, I can get a C. But I’ll pretty much need to get extremely high As on both exams which is impossible because that’ll never happen.”

“Nothing is impossible if you study hard enough for it,” she points out, and Lance’s gaze snaps to hers irately.

“ _Yes_. It is. I have the exam in two weeks that I’m not prepared for. I’m slated to fail this class which fucks up everything because I’ll probably have to retake it in the spring which means I’ll have to take physics II in the summer, but I was planning on joining that medical volunteering mission trip in Guatemala.”

“Can’t you take it in the fall then?”

“You don’t get it, Katie. I need to take the MCAT when I get back in July so my scores can be in by the time I apply to med school, and I need to have an understanding of physics II for the exam.” Lance runs a hand through his hair again in frustration. “And even then, that’s not the issue. If I have to take physics II in the fall, that’s four credits I’ll lose when I need that space to finish my major. Retaking physics in the spring will force me to push some other conflict classes to the fall too. I’ll end up having to overload both semesters of senior year or drop my minor and who the fuck wants to do that after putting in three years of hard work?”

She doesn’t understand why taking a shit ton of courses is a problem because she herself is pretty much going to be a full loading student for the rest of her years at uni, but she supposes he probably wants his last year to be more free. And considering how social a person Lance is, that _does_ make sense to her.

“But that still isn’t the worst part,” Lance continues, his shoulders slumping dejectedly as he stares at his lap. “That damn pre-med advisor in the office told me my bad physics score would make me uncompetitive, because a D or F in the class will likely bump my GPA down to 3.2. And my science GPA would become a 3.0.”

“Huh? How is one bad class going to fuck up your entire application for med school? That’s bullshit!” Pidge frowns, her nose wrinkling at that twisted logic of the advisor. “And like, aren’t you taking other high sciences this semester too? Like biochemistry?”

“Yeah, and microbiology and virology.” Pidge’s eyebrows skip at hearing that. She knows biology majors have a loaded science-based curriculum, but he’s taking _four_ at once and that’s insane, even to her. “I’ll get an A in those two for sure, but biochem I’m pulling a C right now, and I doubt I’ll go that much higher than a B or something. And she told me with grades like mine in multiple harder sciences for this semester, I’d never do too well in med school. And then this bitch had the nerve to say maybe I should start considering a backup plan for my career. I’m a fucking junior! It’s not like my life is over, and worst case scenario, I’d have to take a gap year.”

“…Your pre-med advisor is a right cunt.”

Lance blinks, startled by her comment for a second and then lets out a short bark of laughter.

“Yeah. She really is. No one likes going to her because she has these archaic, strict ideas of what med schools want and if we don’t fit into what her ideas of a perfect candidate are, she tears down our dreams. But we need the rec letters from the committee so she’s all we got.”

She’d heard about advisors like that in the Business School too, but the ones in pre-med are notorious for being disparaging, which is total bullshit. They’d once upon a time been privy to info on the admissions committee of medical universities, but none of them have actually gone to med school or gone through the entire application process so she doesn’t understand why they think they’re the absolute authority on all things med school.

Pidge is lucky that the career advisors and mentors in the School of Engineering are _actual_ working professionals and have _actual_ connections to companies and labs. Her advisor Ryner is the most incredible woman ever and the famous, published scientist who is behind the new innovations of artificial intelligence with prosthetics. She’d been the one to get Pidge her internship and she works tirelessly to make sure her future is set. Ryner keeps close tabs on her and is constantly emailing her about her progress and to see if she wants to get taken out to nice dinners to destress. Pidge can’t imagine doing well mentally with her difficult workload if she didn’t have the strong positive support of a fantastic advisor.

“You know, Lance, a 3.2 GPA is actually pretty great for a junior considering your difficult curriculum. Pre-med is super hard and most people I know dropped it early in their freshman year. But you’ve put so much effort into it and you’re still going strong,” she points out, shifting to sit beside Lance. She sets her hand on his shoulder, giving him a little squeeze. “And you’ve taken a lot of difficult sciences and kicked ass, so why would one stupid grade affect that? And plus, your grades aren’t the only thing that matter. You volunteer at a hospital, you’ve done shadowing before, even with the bad physics score, your MCAT score is already pretty good and you haven’t even taken the real thing yet. And you do all of that while maintaining an active social life. I think you’re amazing. You have a lot going for you outside of one stupid physics class. Don’t let what she said to you get you down. That’s not the Lance I know.”

Lance searches her gaze, his lips pulling up into a cute, lopsided little grin. Something softer. Almost sweet.

“I guess I have been pretty out of character…”

“Yeah. Can you believe you _actually_ told me you don’t want nookie?” She nudges him with her elbow until he snorts.

“Surprised me too… I just— I guess I just don’t get why physics doesn’t come easily to me when all other sciences are a breeze.”

“That’s just the way things go sometimes. I’m great at pretty much all maths, but statistics confuses the shit out of me and I don’t know why because logical thinking is my forte. I had to really put in work in that class to understand the concepts. I mean… I also had Slav as my prof so maybe that explains the difficulty…” She licks her lips a little nervously. “Your class is probably huge, so I would recommend going to see your professor and talking about your issues with the class and how it’s not coming easy. See if there’s anything you can do like extra credit or extra homework problems to offset the other bad exams. Doesn’t hurt to try. But hey… umm, I took physics last year and I did pretty okay on it, so if you want some tutoring, I can help you out so you can do great on the next exams?”

She’s not sure about spending time with him outside of when they fuck, but the offer is already out of her mouth before she can really think about it.

“You’re okay with helping me? You’ve got your own stuff to deal with, don’t you?”

“I don’t mind. I’ve got some free time these next two weekends. We can put in work.”

“…Thanks, Katie. I appreciate it.” And the soft way he says her name carries some affectionate undertone that makes her stomach flip for a moment. “Oh, and uh, sorry about being a dick earlier. You didn’t deserve that.”

She shrugs, scratching at her arm. “You’re stressed. Shit happens.”

“Still. I’m sorry,” he responds softly.

She gives him a small smile to show there are no hard feelings, though her heart thrums in her chest from the gentle pull of his eyes as he holds her gaze.

…

As finals approach, the School of Engineering library allows for 24/7 access as long as people have student or staff IDs so people can get more hours studying. So Pidge rents a study room for the entire weekend and next weekend to help Lance prepare.

Reviewing concepts first turns out to be a good start because she’s quickly able to find out what connections Lance is missing. Once that gets figured out, she gives him tips to help him understand the concepts which helps him make progress.

From an early age, Pidge had learned how to compartmentalise all the information she’d been taught and then pick the pertinent ones to make her own theories of the concepts in a way that work for her to understand. Everything else she throws out of her mind as arbitrary. And then later, she checks the actual concept to make sure she’s on the right track. In essence, developing her own concept without actually being taught the concept. Some people don’t get how she’s able to do that right away; Rizavi keeps telling her most people’s brains _can’t_ work that way. And she supposes it’s the reason why she’d ended up skipping a grade at a young age. They’d wanted her to skip two grades, but her mother hadn’t wanted her to end up burned out too soon.

But the concepts she’d created for physics seem to work better for Lance than the instruction from the professor and once he starts getting the hang of it, it doesn’t take fifteen minutes to do one problem anymore. He looks hopeful for the first time, and she’s glad.

She finds it touching that he’d actually given up a weekend of partying to devote some serious studying hours with her, and to help out, she buys food for them and keeps her snark to a minimum.

Working with him also helps her see why he can handle the work that he has and party that much at the same time. Lance picks up concepts he can understand fast, he’s perceptive and quick thinking, and his intuition for correct and incorrect answers is damn good. One thing she notices is that if it comes down to two answers that are very similar, about 95% of the time, he’ll guess and pick the right one.

The pre-med advisor definitely has it all wrong, and that’s why Pidge is even more annoyed than before that she’d even said that to Lance in the first place. He’s very smart, despite how he comes across sometimes. And that old bat doesn’t know a damn thing about how well he does with exams and courses and how well his mind handles the mix of work. She’d only seen grades on paper and passed judgement based off of that, so Pidge makes sure to let Lance know he’s doing great.

Everything is going perfectly and the way he’s studying, she believes he can really pull an A or B out of his ass for this next exam. And if he puts in the same amount of dedication and work to go over all the concepts after that, he might be able to pull an A for the final too.

There’s just one problem.

“I’m trying to help you pass an exam, Lance. Stop getting distracted,” Pidge huffs, glaring down at her notes and trying her best to ignore the hand caressing her inner thigh, slowly inching its way up.

He kisses her neck and continues leaving a trail of kisses to her collarbone. “Exam’s the furthest thing on my mind right now…”

She feels it too, but if she can ignore her arousal, so can he. “ _Lance_ —”

“Plus you wore a skirt today and you have on your glasses and you look like a sexy librarian and it’s messing with my mind,” he murmurs in her ear and Pidge can’t help her shiver.

It _is_ a Saturday night and studying all afternoon and evening has made them both restless, and she knows both of their motivation is starting to drop. Even Pidge doesn’t study all day like this and they’ve been doing this nonstop. It’d started out as just lingering looks, a hand on her knee, random blowing in her ear, but then he’d gotten his hand under her skirt, he’d kept nuzzling her neck, and now…

“You’re such a perv.”

“You wore this on purpose.”

“It’s laundry day and I ran out of clean clothes!” Her face flushes. “If you don’t stop it, I’m gonna go spend my time in more productive ways.”

He grins, lifting his head to give her a rogue-ish smirk. “Like you read my mind, babe.”

“Lance!”

But even she can feel her resistance slipping.

“Just a short break. Then I promise I’ll be a good boy.”

“I don’t have any condoms.” She licks her lips, lamenting the warmth when he moves his hand from her thigh.

“You’re not a good Boy Scout if you don’t come prepared.”

He catches her lips in a filthy kiss then, and Pidge doesn’t even try to fight him as he pulls her onto his lap. It’s a bad idea. Anyone walking outside could glance in the blinds and see them but when she rolls her hips on him and she can feel how aroused he is, she decides that maybe one little break wouldn’t hurt. The room is soundproof after all.

Except they end up taking three more “study breaks” in the span of an hour.

“Oh my God, yes _… yes!”_

Pidge tilts her head back, holding onto his shoulders for dear life as she grinds down and he bucks up into her, his cock burying hilt deep inside her perfectly with each sharp thrust. Her legs are cramping from the position on his lap, but she’s two seconds from a fast orgasm and the hard heat inside her is just what she needs. The sheer ecstasy makes her forget time and place, and Pidge can do no more than let out short, breathless gasps. His breathing is coming out in uneven pants too, fingers gripping her hips hard enough to bruise and mouth moaning incoherent words against the front of her neck.

 _“_ Katie _… holy shit._ I can’t hold— _fuck_ —can’t hold back.”

She squeezes him inside her and shortly after, Lance groans haltingly against her skin as he releases his load. She moans from the throbbing of his cock and he continues to thrust jerkily, reaching between her legs to rub at her clit. The pressure feels so good, and with a few quick brushes, that wild wave of pleasure hits Pidge again. She drops her head on his shoulder, and he wraps an arm around her waist to support her as they continue to slowly grind against each other as they come down.

“Give me five minutes, I can be up and running for you again,” Lance says in between pants, his finger dragging nice, lazy circles around her clit.

She wants it, but they’d already lost about an hour fucking around and she needs to be a more responsible tutor. Pidge is pretty shocked by how insatiably horny she’s been recently. It’s all Lance’s fault. She just doesn’t understand how easily Lance could make her self-control snap like this because this has never been anything like her.

“I hate you…” Pidge groans in his shoulder, swallowing hard as she tries to catch her breath.

He laughs. “Are you too sore?”

“No, that’s not it. Lance, we can’t keep doing this,” Pidge pushes against his shoulders until he stops touching her. With a whimper from the loss of warmth, she climbs off his lap to pull down her skirt and fix her panties, though she cringes at the wetness. “You need motivation to study and you keep getting distracted by me.”

“Can’t help it that I find you sexy as hell,” he responds with a cheeky grin.

She refuses to get swayed by the dangerous heat in his eyes. “There’s only one solution to this problem I can think of.”

Lance pauses in tying up the condom. “Why does it sound like I’m about to go through something horrible…?”

“For every problem you get right, I’ll take something off. For every problem you get wrong, I’m putting something back on. If I’m already wearing maximum stuff, and you get the next two questions wrong, you’ll need _three_ right to get the first thing off. Once I’m totally naked, I’ll let you do whatever you want to me. And then we start over. Sounds good?”

“Sounds like torture.”

“Don’t get anything wrong and you won’t suffer blue balls.” Pidge crosses her arm in front of her chest. “We’re not having any more sex otherwise. Take it or leave it.”

He groans, dropping his head on the table with a clunk. “…I’ll take it.”

Pidge smiles smugly, quite pleased with herself.

…

Pidge prides herself on her near perfect immune system, but at the end of the day, a college dorm _is_ a cesspool of germs, and this happens at least once a year, so she’s not surprised when she ends up catching a bad cold.

Unfortunately though, it ends up happening right on the week of Aunt Flo’s damn visit.

“I’m gonna die…”

Pidge whines, rolling over onto her side and pulling her nonna’s quilt further up to cover the lower half of her face as she coughs. She’s exhausted. And it’s as if they’d both teamed or something to make her life hell. Her cold is wreaking havoc on her upper body; her period on her lower. She wants to snuggle a warm, stuffed animal or something, but all she’d brought with her to uni is her mermaid plushie and it’s not big or squishy or warm enough.

(And it can’t cuddle her back).

It’s bad enough that she’d had to trudge her way to class half asleep and practically keeling over, but she has so much stuff to take care of that she absolutely cannot miss a day of. Thankfully she’s not the RA on duty tonight nor does she have her internship, so that helps, but her schedule is tenuously arranged this week in such a way that she absolutely under no circumstances can miss a day because it will throw everything off completely.

She normally keeps a close watch on her period every month, tracking it carefully to prepare medication for the cramp day, to plan her wardrobe, when to buy supplies and candy, and when she starts limiting her activities with Lance to her doing things for him and telling him not to go below the waist for her. And it always works because she’s a meticulous planner.

But her stupid cycle is slightly off her schedule this time (about three days early), and that’s never happened before.

She’s been having shitty cramps for two days, her head is stuffy with so much pressure she has a headache, her nose hurts from blowing it so often, her body feels cold and too hot at the same time, and as if that’s not bad enough, her vagina is all sore and sticky and she’s so bloated she feels like if someone poked a needle in her tummy, it’d pop like a balloon. She’s so damn hungry, but she can’t possibly think about eating food when she’s this weak and tired.

Pidge knows she needs to get out of bed to get to work, but she’d come back from class deciding to take a small nap and the minute her head had hit the pillow, she’d conked out. Now she’s too lazy to get out of bed and it’s not ideal.

She hears her phone buzz with a text and slaps around for it. She’s a little drowsy, but the eggplant emoji greets her and she drags her finger on her screen to see what Lance is asking.

🍆🍆🍆

**> >free tonite?**

_kil me now_

She’s not really sure why she texts him back when usually she’ll just ignore him if she’s not free and he’ll take the hint. She’s not really sure how coherent it comes out either because her mind is muddled and hazy, and she’s not really sure why she sends that to Lance in the first place when he probably wouldn’t care. But to her surprise, he texts her back soon enough.

**🍆 🍆🍆 **

**> >keith says ur sick**

_vag bleding iut an my hed wil explose_

_*bledi_

_*blede_

_*bleedign_

_shhlskllfhj fukkkkkk_

He doesn’t respond to any of that, even minutes later, and she figures he probably thinks she’s crazy and that he doesn’t want to talk to her. Pidge doesn’t know why she’s kind of disappointed, but she shucks it aside and goes through the painstaking process of getting out of bed. The more time she wastes, the longer it will take her to finish up her work.

She’s trying hard to read some lecture notes through her swimming vision, hunched over her laptop and taking slow, haggard breaths when someone opens up her door. Pidge glances over blearily, half expecting someone to let her know something else is broken or torn up or that all their common room furniture has been stuffed in the elevator again, but it’s just Lance holding a plastic bag.

“What are you doing out of bed?” he says without prelude, brows furrowed as he walks in. “You’re sick. You should be resting.”

“Too much work to do…” she grumbles, trying to get back to her reading, but even she knows it’s moot because every word looks like a bunch of gibberish and she’s been stuck processing ‘from’ and ‘around’ for the past three minutes, trying to make sense of their meaning and now she doesn’t know how they’re even words at all. “I gotta go eat the parallel programming project and research dinner.”

“Do it later.”

Pidge sneers at him, ready to tell him to piss off, but she sneezes which disconcerts her enough for Lance to take her glasses off, pull her chair away from her desk, and scoop her up princess style in one fluid motion. She squawks in surprise, but she’s already dumped on her bed before she can do anything and Pidge is too weak to put her energy back into getting out of bed when it’d taken her almost ten minutes to get out in the first place.

“You derailed all my work,” she bemoans, flipping him off.

She wants to protest, ready to tell Lance to leave her alone, but he picks up her discarded quilt and drapes it over her and the comforting warmth of her blanket is too much to fight against.

“School store is out of a lot of shit so I’ll have to go to a convenience store later tonight, but they did have soup cans. You can eat that later.” While he talks, he sets the soup cans near where she keeps her other snacks. She watches him pull out a partially frozen ice pack as well as a small bottle of cough medicine. “But they ran out of heat packs. I did have this ice pack in my freezer, so I figured it might help. And I got medicine.”

She blinks at him through hazy eyes, watching as he opens her dresser to pull out one of her smaller, clean pillowcases. He folds it around the ice pack and then moves back to her side to set it on her forehead, tying the back of the case around her head like a bandana. Pidge sighs, feeling some relief from the cold compress on her overheated skin. She doesn’t know why she’s being so pliant, but it’s pretty nice being taken care of so when he measures a cup of the meds and helps her drink it, she takes it with no fuss too.

She thinks he’s going to leave after that, but Lance steps out of his shoes and climbs up on her bed to lie down beside her. And without her even mentioning her need for body heat, he tugs her gently on top of him, wrapping his arms around her so she can lie comfortably on his chest.

It kind of fucks her up how sweet he’s being. He really has no reason to spend so much time with her when she’s sick—and especially when she’s so grimy and gross from not showering—but when she’s about to tell him so, he slides a hand into her hair and oh so gently starts scratching her scalp.

“ _Ooooh_ …” Pidge moans, her eyes practically rolling to the back of her head. She gives up completely on making him leave because this is _perfect_. “This is even better than sex.”

“You’re delirious.”

“Shut up and don’t stop.”

“I’ll get you a heat pack later tonight for your cramps, kay?” His voice in her ear is soft and lulls her into a gentle sleepy state. She almost mewls, so overcome by how great it feels to cuddle a warm, squishy human plus Lance smells like fresh laundry and she doesn’t know why, but it’s just what she needs to settle her ailing stomach. “Just get some rest. It’s not going to kill you to leave work for at least a few hours so you can regain your strength.”

“Lance…” she whines like a three year old, her eyes drifting shut as she nestles into his warmth. “I want peanut butter cups…”

His chest shakes a bit from his chuckle. “Okay. I can buy you peanut butter cups.”

“And gummi bears?”

“Gummi bears too.”

The steady rise and fall of his chest helps her drift off to sleep, and Pidge melts from the absolute perfection of his hand rubbing soothing circles on her back under her shirt. And when she wakes up about three hours later, her stomach growling, he’s still there. She tries to tell herself he’s only helping her out so she can feel better faster and they can go back to fucking sooner, but there’s a part of her deep down that can’t calm her speeding heart as she ponders why he would go to such lengths for her. Why he would spend the entire night with her, pampering her, yielding to her increasingly ridiculous demands with nothing but that same affectionate smile on his face.

It does something funny to her heart.

They don’t talk about whatever that was the next day after she’s capable of moving around again, but the day after that, she stops by his room as soon as she can.

“Hey, Lance. I was thinking… you know how you, umm… two days ago— I-I really appreciate, uh… I just— I just wanted to thank you for helping me out,” Pidge mutters, her cheeks flushing as she wrings her hands. “And sorry for blowing my nose on your shirt.”

“No problem. I’m glad you’re feeling better now.” Lance leans back in his desk chair, a playful smile on his face as he sets down his textbook. “Plus I didn’t mind. You’re pretty damn cute when you’re sick.”

“…Moron.”

Lance laughs as she leaves, but she can’t help the warmth spreading through her body.

…

Things change after that.

It’s hard to describe exactly what happened or how, but they spend a disproportionate amount of time together, even when they’re not having sex. It usually happens when Lance comes over for study tips on something he’s not getting. But on those late study nights, he always sleeps over, and Pidge grows accustomed to waking up with his arms draped protectively around her waist and his legs tangled in hers.

(And a hard object humping her ass).

When Keith is staying over at his sugar daddy’s place, Pidge will sleep in Lance’s bed, and so on and so forth goes the dance, which is kind of strange to her because it’s not even always about sex. Sure, more often than not they’ll screw before deciding to call it a night, but she can think of at least ten instances where she’d curled up and snuggled with him only for his company and fallen asleep in his arms. They don’t even really talk _that_ much, but she really likes the way Lance will brush her hair out of her face and stroke her cheek as she’s falling asleep.

She gets too used to it though, and Pidge is a creature of habit. When the finals rush begins, she decides to cut back on the time they spend together so she can delve deep into her studies and work. Sex is great and all, but she can’t have a delicious, sun-kissed distraction while she’s in study mode. She’s yet to do badly on any finals, and she knows if she doesn’t keep her distance from Lance, she won’t be at the top of her game.

“So… this is probably the last time we can meet until the end of finals, Lance,” Pidge informs him, tugging up her panties as Lance watches her from where he’s lounging on his bed. “I’ve got to finish notes for my internship and end of the semester events and stuff are always the busiest and I won’t have time to meet up.”

“Why’d you wait until we were done to say that?” Lance pulls himself up so he’s resting on his elbow. “I would have done some more stuff to you.”

“This will have to tide you over for the time being,” Pidge responds unapologetically as she tugs on her hoodie.

He gives her a dry look. “I’m still half hard, Katie.”

“What exactly do you want me to do about it?”

“I want you back in my bed.” Pidge blinks at him, unimpressed, and he smiles sheepishly instead. “Fine then. Goodbye kiss?”

She should know better, because Lance always pulls shit like this, and sure enough, as she’s leaning down, he tugs her down by the shoulders and she ends up sprawled on his mattress, trapped by his arms.

“Lance!” She laughs, trying futilely to pull out of his hold. “C’mon, I have stuff to do.”

“I am stuff. Do me.”

“God, you are such a moron!”

And then the sound of a key turning a lock fills the room and the door suddenly swings open, banging against the wall. Pidge gasps and she barely has enough time to crawl under the covers as Lance yanks it over her before the stomping footsteps round the corner. Pidge’s heart thumps hard in her chest as the blanket surrounds her in darkness. That had been _way_ too close.

“Lance, I can’t find my drawing tablet,” she hears Keith say frantically as the sound of dresser drawers opening and slamming shut fills the room. “Seen it anywhere? _Fuck_. I’m about to be late for class.”

“I haven’t been in since yesterday. Sorry, dude.” Lance’s hand under the blanket pats her head, as if telling her it’ll be alright. “Maybe you left it in your boyfriend’s apartment.”

It’s kind of exciting in its own way. Being right in the bed with Lance and hiding from Keith in plain sight. It makes Pidge want to make other risky moves.

“Not my boyfriend.”

“Whatever, Mullet.”

Keith huffs out a sigh and his own bed creaks. “I could have sworn it was in here? Maybe I did leave it at his apartment…”

“Text him and ask somewhere else. I’m kind of in the middle of something.”

“Yeah, I heard her giggling when I walked in,” Keith says dryly. “Put a sock on the door next time.”

“There _was_ a sock on the door.”

“Lock the door then.”

“It was locked too, Keith.”

“Guess you’ll have to stop having sex in our room then. What a shame…” Keith drawls and she feels the bed shake when Lance throws something at him.

Pidge finds Lance’s sternum and presses kisses on his chest, over to one of his pecs, lightly tugging his nipple between her teeth and laving her tongue over it. Lance clears his throat, jerking a bit when she bites his pec, sucking hard enough to definitely leave a hickey. The hand on her head tries to move her face, but Pidge shoves it out of the way and continues. Lance shifts, rolling sideways to get her off, so Pidge reaches down and cups his dick, putting just the barest of pressure. Lance groans weakly, and she smirks because she knows she has him like putty in her hands.

“Are you…? Are you getting blown right now?” Keith asks in horror.

“Pretty sure it’s headed that way, yeah…” Lance breathes out, bucking himself in her hand as she grasps him.

Pidge crawls down and holding him with both hands, she takes his head in her mouth, letting her tongue dip into the slit and giggling to herself at how quickly his erection gets worse. Lance exhales shakily, hips arching off the mattress for her to take more of him into her mouth.

“You’re sick. Holy fuck, I’m out.”

Keith’s footsteps hurry out of the room and as soon as the door closes, Pidge stops dropping kisses on Lance’s dick and kicks the covers out of the way. She’s already off the bed and pulling on her pants by the time Lance gets out of his daze. The disgruntled look on his face is so cute, as if he just can’t fathom how she could stop cold turkey after what she’d done to him.

“You don’t play fair.”

He’s pretty hard, and she feels bad, but not as bad as she’ll feel if she doesn’t get her work done and she’s not changing her schedule for anyone, magical dick or not. 

“Awww, I’m sorry, baby,” Pidge says in a patronising tone, zipping up her pants and then bending at the waist to nuzzle his nose with hers. When she straightens, she can’t help but laugh at the evil eye he’s giving her. “I really do need some distance though. _Just_ to study. So you’ll have to make do for the next couple of weeks.”

“Fine.” Lance stretches his arms far above his head with a loud yawn, and to her pleasure, she really can see the beginnings of a nice, purple love bite on his chest. “Just know I’m not happy.”

“It’s not that long. I’m sure you’ll survive without me.”

…

And she’d honestly believed that.

Pidge isn’t sure what she’d expected would happen after the last time they met up. For some reason, she’d believed that he would just sit around masturbating for two weeks but she’d forgotten that Lance is a fuckboy at the end of the day. And that he would do fuckboy things. She’d forgotten he had other girls on speed dial.

It’s dumb really.

Pidge should be focusing on making sure the photo booth runs smoothly while people come to the quad for the RA-hosted Reduce Stress Jamboree on the last week of classes. She should be handing out candy apples with her fellow RAs and pulling raffle ticket numbers for the free massages and making sure there’s enough sugar for the cotton candy machine and checking in on Coran (who looks like he’s grown quite tired of being dropped in the freezing tub of the dunk tank).

But instead, she’s watching Lance flirt closely with some blue haired girl by the bike racks. She’s clearly eating up the attention. It’s pretty obvious from both of their body language that they’re probably close—probably have _sexual_ history too—and though Pidge keeps yelling in her head at herself that she is the furthest thing from jealous, she can’t figure out why she can’t stop watching. Especially when he leans down and puckers his lips and they share a familiar, playful kiss before the girl heads off with her school bag.

Only a week had passed since she’d told him she wouldn’t be around and he’d clearly wasted no time finding someone else. It makes Pidge’s blood boil. Especially because that morning, she’d texted Lance that she would be free late after the jamboree for a quick pre-finals romp. She’d even broken her own rule not to meet him at all during this time.

“This was a huge hit, Pidge! We did so good!” Luka cheers, along with some of the other RAs from other dorms, and they all exchange high fives. “Did you see how many people showed up?!”

Pidge halfheartedly slaps her hands to theirs, though she can’t muster up a real smile because all she can see is Lance kissing that other girl. It makes her stomach hurt thinking about it, so she puts 110% effort into the clean up once the event ends for the afternoon. Lance texts her at some point asking if she’s still free tonight, but she doesn’t respond to him, especially peeved that he has the nerve to contact her after he’d probably been screwing the other girl earlier that day.

(Maybe even for the past week).

Pidge takes it upon herself to return AV equipment and the speakers, even though the other RAs offer to help her. It’ll take longer on her own, but she wants time to stew in her thoughts without having to converse for the time being.

By the time she finishes, dinner hour has long passed. She doesn’t have any new texts, but apparently Coran had bought pizza for all his RAs for their hard work so she heads off to the head resident apartment. She tries to join in the festivities and contribute to the random stories her fellow Arus RAs tell about the stupid antics that happen on the regular, but she keeps finding herself checking her phone every handful of seconds. Pidge doesn’t know why she’s hoping Lance will text her when she knows she’s the one who didn’t respond to his text, but she feels a sting in her chest that he hasn’t sent her anything else.

When Pidge gets back to her room, she decides to delve into finishing her final essay for the ethics class, even though she has that listed on her schedule as one of the last items to work on during this last stretch of school. She just needs to be in flow right now, not distracted by anything, and the best way to get there is if she’s writing an extensive fifteen page paper.

Except there’s a knock on her door while she’s finally starting to find her groove, and a beat later, Lance pokes his head in.

“Been busy today?”

Pidge’s jaw instantly clenches. “It’s close to finals. What do you think?”

He stares at her for a beat and then raises a brow as he steps inside and shuts her door behind him. “I think you’re mad at me about something stupid and I’m not sure what it is, so can we skip the part where we have this back and forth and you just tell me what’s up? Because you texted me to stop by so I did.”

She continues scowling at her screen in hopes that Lance will leave her alone.

“Yeah, well I was wrong. I have work to do until the end of the semester, Lance, so I can’t meet up with you anymore. Why don’t you call up one of your other little toys? That girl with the blue hair seems like she’d be up for it…”

It’s too obvious and she knows it sounds ridiculous. But Pidge hasn’t ever felt jealousy—irritation, her mind corrects swiftly—like this in her life, and she wants to be petty, even if it sounds stupid to her too. And this is exactly why she limits her social and romantic interactions. She’ll fall behind on her work if she continues to put so much emotional energy in her relationship and…

Pidge stops typing for a moment, thrown off by her thoughts.

It’s not like they have a relationship. At the end of the day, they _are_ just having sex. Cuddling and helping him study and sleeping in each other’s beds does not point to a relationship at all.

She swallows hard, confused by how she’d forgotten the distinction. “Forget it, Lance. Just go study or something.”

“So… you’re mad… because you think I’m fucking Plaxum,” Lance concludes, far too acutely, and Pidge turns in her chair so he can’t see her cheeks burning, “even after _you_ told me to make do?”

“No,” she snaps coldly, resuming her rapid typing, although she knows she’s not really writing anything of true value. The words aren’t making sense in coherent sentences. “I don’t give a fuck what you do. You have other people to hook up with. Don’t let me stand in your way.”

She doesn’t know why it bothers her so much, but it does. Plaxum is gorgeous; why wouldn’t he be sleeping with her too? And she knows what Lance is like so there’s no need for her to get so possessive over him because he’s always been like this.

_Yes, but that was before he started fucking you._

He hasn’t changed. She’s forgotten that, but it still annoys her.

And she knows it’s because she’d thought she was special or something. He’d spent so much time with her these past several weeks that for some reason, she’d deluded herself into thinking she’s enough. She knows better now. But when the thought crosses her mind, her eyes sting for a moment before she aggressively blinks the pathetic building tears away.

Lance steps up beside her, his hand on her laptop lid, and Pidge barely moves her fingers out of the way fast enough for him to shut it. She’s ready to tear him a new one, but then he pulls her chair away from her desk and holds on to both armrests, gaze even with hers as he levels her with a serious look.

Pidge leans back, her eyes a bit wide. “I have w-work to finish up.”

“I’m not fucking Plaxum. You’re the last person I was with actually. But I’m getting the sense that if I had done anything, you’d be upset.”

She stares at the dirty t-shirt at the top of her pile of unwashed clothes, her hands fisting her sweatpants. “Lance… it doesn’t matter. Just forget I said anything.”

He doesn’t do that. He does the opposite and crouches in front of her so she’s looking at him directly. Pidge feels trapped and stares at the shells around his neck, her heart feeling like it’s trying to jump out of her chest.

“Katie.” Lance draws her gaze back to him by taking her hands in his. She hates how vulnerable she feels, as if he can see right through her and pinpoint all her deepest fears and thoughts and wishes. “You want this to be exclusive, don’t you?”

“Wha?! I didn’t—! It’s not like I— I-I never said that— Look, I don’t care if you have sex with other girls! Do whatever you want but I don’t want to know about it.” Her face flushes as she stumbles over her words but Lance doesn’t move from his crouch, gazing up at her patiently. And it’s the genuine support and care she sees in his eyes that gets her. She caves, an embarrassed flush painting her cheeks as her shoulders slump. “I know it’s dumb, and I know that we’re not together so I have no right, but… thinking about you with her… it just…”

It drives her up a wall.

The last part, she mumbles, but Lance definitely gets the gist because he nods and stands up.

“Okay. I get it.”

“Look, I understand if that idea repulses you. I’m not trying to force you to change, but that’s just how I feel. It bugs me. So if you want to call this thing off, I understand.”

“No, I get where you’re coming from,” he repeats, rubbing the back of his neck. The smile he gives her is more on the side of his genuine smile. “It’s kind of territorial, but… I’d be pretty bugged too if you slept with some other guy if I wasn’t available on one of our nights.”

Pidge’s eyes go wide. “What? Wait, really?”

“…I don’t mind the exclusive thing, I guess,” Lance admits at length and by this point, Pidge’s pulse is going so wild she’s not sure how she hasn’t fainted. “So if that’s what you’re asking for, okay. But I have a lot of needs, so be prepared because I’m a horny fucking bastard.”

“Oh God… I change my mind.”

“Too late.”

Lance holds her chin, leaning down and giving her slow, sweet kiss that practically has Pidge melting. She blinks up at him in a daze when he pulls away, her heart alight and mesmerised by the soft dancing of his eyes.

“I’m all yours, Katie.”

…

Once winter break comes around, Pidge goes back home while Lance and his family travel to Cuba to spend time with his grandparents over the break. She doesn’t really have anything important going on and she’s a little thrown off by not having Lance in her day to day routine so she voice calls him randomly one day, and they end up on the phone for hours.

And it kind of replaces the time they would have originally spent screwing.

It pretty much happens every day to the point her mom thinks she has a boyfriend—which she teases her mercilessly about—and he’s not a boyfriend, but it does make Pidge realise they kind of are in some sort of situationship. She willingly spends more time with Lance than she ever had with her actual ex-boyfriend and she’s not sure what that means.

(Well… she’s _kinda_ sure what that means for her, but she doesn’t want to think about it too deeply).

“Okay, so worst sex experience so far in college,” Pidge prompts, leaning back against her pillow and twirling a stray lock of her tangled hair around her finger.

She hasn’t brushed it in almost three days and now she’s considering cutting her losses and going back to her short pixie cut from high school.

_“Junior year. Blowjob and the girl’s molars nicked me a bit.”_

Pidge laughs to herself. “Ouch.”

 _“I don’t know why you’re laughing when I’m talking about you…”_ Lance drawls over the call.

“Hey! It was probably an accident!” Lance chuckles quietly. Pidge’s phone pings with an email from the dean of students, and to her pleasure, it’s an email congratulating her for her President’s List distinction this past semester. Her certificate will arrive in the mail soon. She’d expected nothing less, of course. “Oh look. Final grades came out. How’d you do in physics?”

_“Got a C but that’s good enough for me.”_

“That _is_ great! Didn’t you need a C in the first place? That means you got a perfect score on your final, right?”

 _“Not even close,”_ Lance admits with a snort, _“but I talked to Iverson about my struggles before the semester ended and he was really cool about it all. He told me if I turned in all the textbook problems from the chapters I did for practice he’d give me some kind of bonus points to bump up my score since there wasn’t a homework requirement in that class. When he found out I did all of them, he told me regardless of my exam score, he believed that kind of dedication didn’t deserve a failing mark. So I’m happy.”_

“That’s amazing, Lance!”

The pride in his voice is deserved, and she’s genuinely happy for him.

 _“It’s all thanks to you,”_ he responds, a slight affectionate tone to his voice. _“If you hadn’t helped me study for hours, if you hadn’t suggested talking to my prof, I probably would have given up.”_

“It was all you. You’re already smart. You just needed help with the concepts.”

 _“Still. You being there for me despite your busy schedule… it means a lot,”_ Lance says softly. _“I know I’ve said it before, but I really mean it. Thanks, babe.”_

Her cheeks warm as a goofy smile grows on her face. “No problem.”

It’s weird talking to Lance all the time as if they’re together, but she likes it. She likes how his voice sounds over the phone, all smooth and mellow. She especially likes it when it’s super late and most of his family is in bed but they want to keep talking and he’s trying to stay quiet so his voice remains a soft hush, low and even, a little gravelly, and it hits her right between her legs.

They talk for a while about random things, hitting topics like the best Killbot game and the stupid crap that their tormenting brothers have pulled (and how Marco and Matt are literally the same person and should never meet because it will be chaos) and somehow that takes them to previous relationships.

“My ex was nice—a little boring maybe—but I don’t know. We just didn’t work, I guess,” Pidge says in response to his question if she’s ever been in a real relationship. “I was attracted to him enough, and we had similar hobbies so it was _easy_ but I wasn’t really interested in him or being with him if that makes sense.”

_“Sounds like he wasn’t stimulating enough for you.”_

“Intellectually, he was. Everything else, no. Oh, and he wore socks when we had sex.” Pidge’s nose wrinkles in disgust at the memory of her ex’s horrible penchant for divesting himself of everything but his socks. “Thought it made him look suave.”

Lance laughs while trying to stay quiet, a low throaty sound that spikes up her arousal. She wishes he wasn’t so far away because she’s been horny all break and there’s only so much she can do for herself.

“Have you been in any recent relationships?” she asks him, picking her fingernails though she’s kind of holding her breath for the answer.

_“My last serious one was last year. Older chick. I was in love with her, and then I kind of got my heart broken, so… I’m not really into serious stuff anymore. Especially since I tend to fall for people fast.”_

“Oh.” Disappointment hits her for some reason. “Do you hate relationships now then?”

_“I don’t hate them. But I’ve never really felt a huge push to be in one.”_

“…Why?”

_“I don’t know. It’s more like an ‘I have to make sure I found the right person I’d be willing to get serious with’ kind of thing, you know? And after my last relationship, that’s going to take some time for me.”_

Her heart drops from his answer. She’s not sure what she’d expected him to say on the matter, but it also kind of hurts a bit. It’s not like she’d expected him to want to be serious with her or anything—she knows that’s not Lance’s nature—but she’d still thought with how close they’d gotten that maybe he might see her as slightly different, _not_ that she wants to be with Lance like that or anything.

But they spend so much time together, a little tiny part of her had been hoping that he might see her as the possible right person.

She really has to stop deluding herself into thinking any of this is interest outside of just sex.

 _“So…”_ Lance mutters playfully, and she can hear the obscene smirk on his lips. _“What are you wearing?”_

She chews on her bottom lip, a slow smile growing on her face. “Why don’t I just show you?”

Pidge hangs up the voice call and clambers out of her bed to her closet. She has a little box she keeps hidden in the back corner far behind her old shoes with everything she’d bought at an “inappropriate” age and hides from her mother. And in the box is a lacy, red, see-through little number she’d bought when she’d been sneaking out and fooling around with Matt’s friend. It’s slightly small on her hips when she slips it on, but the parts that need to be shown off are still shown off and she knows she looks good.

To finish off the look, Pidge pulls her hair out of her ponytail and tousles it, letting it fall around her in dishevelled waves. And then she applies a thin layer of bright red lipstick. By the time she’s done, she believes she looks like a wanton sex goddess and that’s exactly the look she’s trying to go for.

She’s being extra, she knows, but you only live once, and her sole goal right now is to mess with Lance’s mind like nothing else. He can’t have her right now, so she’s going to make him miserable wishing he could. They might be exclusive on campus, but they’d said nothing about vacations and breaks, and from all his comments about going out dancing with his siblings and childhood friends, she can’t help but feel like he’d probably gone home with a few girls here and there.

(So to be honest, this extra-ness is reaffirming for herself).

When Pidge is ready, she makes sure her door is locked so her mom doesn’t come barging in or something, she hops on her bed and gets comfortable, and then video calls him this time, holding her phone in a way so he can see her ensemble choice.

Lance picks up, he’s just lounging on his bed, and she absolutely loves the fact that she can see the exact moment his expression goes from neutral to strained.

 _“For fuck’s sake…”_ he swears, low and rough. _“Are you **trying** to kill me?”_

“Sucks that you’re four thousand miles away, huh?” Pidge poses like a pinup model, holding her lower lip between her teeth and batting her lashes at him innocently. She feels super wild, daring, like she wants to do something that’s completely unlike her. “Hey… do you wanna do something kind of crazy?”

 _“Like what?”_ His voice is deeper, more hoarse, and it makes a surge of heat go through Pidge.

“Like…”

She drags her hand through her hair slowly, down the side of her face and neck, down her chest and continues trailing her hand down, slow and steady and angling her phone until he can definitely see her reaching under the nightie between her legs. She already knows she’s switched on, but she doesn’t realise how wet she is from thinking about Lance watching her until she strokes herself lightly and the tip of her finger gets coated.

Pidge mewls softly in pleasure, spreading her legs wide and tilting the camera so he can see her running her fingers over herself. She whimpers when she finally presses a finger inside her to curl up and stroke her walls. It’s more intense than usual, sensation a little sharper than normal, and she knows it’s because Lance is watching her.

_“Jesus fucking Christ… Katie, you have no idea what you’re doing to me right now…”_

His breathing sounds off and she hears the distant slapping of skin. In the corner of the screen, she can see his arm moving rhythmically. Fire spikes through her body at the thought of Lance getting off while watching her get off.

It’s kind of silly, masturbating to a guy on a video call with her, but seeing the dark look on his face, hearing his strained voice wash over her, it makes her that much more aroused, heat washing over her as she quickly approaches her peak.

“L-Lance, I want to watch you.” She moans, pushing another finger inside her and pumping her wet heat. Her toes curl as she rubs on her clit, and Pidge pants for breath, closing her eyes as the coil under her navel starts to tighten. “Tell me what you’re thinking about.”

 _“What you look like when I’m inside you. How sexy it is when you try to hold back but can’t.”_ Lance tilts his own camera down and pleasure dances up her spine from watching him grip his thick, swollen cock in his hand, jerking it in sharp, precise motions that have him breathing irregularly. _“The way you squeeze me when you come like you don’t want to let me go… How much I want to fuck you without a condom so I can feel all of you.”_

“ _Oh God_ … me too…” she whispers breathlessly, pressure rising sharply with each drag of her finger as she takes in his words.

Pidge shudders, more frantic in her efforts to get herself off. She really likes his voice like this, all rugged and gruff when he’s close to coming. She lets it wash over her, imagining he’s behind her, murmuring in her ear, his fingers deep inside her and his hand pinching her nipple. Her fingers can’t reach the spot he usually can but just thinking about the way he touches her, the way he fucks her hard until she’s an incoherent mess starts to take her over the edge. Pidge pumps faster, more recklessly, moaning, listening to Lance’s increasingly laboured breaths and soft grunts as she thumbs her clit in desperate circles. Lance groans, his bed creaking from how hard he’s pumping himself.

_“Come on, baby. I can’t come until you do.”_

“ _Lance_ …” she whines, tilting her head back on her pillow as she bucks her hips into her hand. “I want you inside me…”

Lance growls from the effort of holding back, something low and animalistic that has her whimpering with need.

She’s so close. She’s almost there, and the pressure is on the verge of snapping.

_“When we get back on campus, I’m gonna fuck you hard and deep all night.”_

The low threat is exactly the push she needs to take her tumbling over the edge.

Pidge cries out softly, her thighs clenching as her release hits her sharply, back arching off the mattress and hand shaking where she rubs herself to ride out the wave. Lance’s ragged moan sounds like music to her ears when he finally lets himself go too. When the ripples finally subside, she slumps back with a satisfied sigh, wishing Lance was here so they could bask in the afterglow together. He usually holds her after they come, his hand lazily running up and down her side to help her catch her breath. She wipes her hand off on the edge of the towel hanging over the back of her desk chair, too lazy to get up right now and clean herself up in full or change.

“I can’t believe we just did that…” Pidge covers her face, her cheeks so red she’s not sure it’ll go away anytime soon. She peeks out from behind her fingertips. “That was so embarrassing.”

 _“That was the sexiest thing I have ever seen, Katie.”_ His voice sounds wrecked, his own face flushed as he runs a hand through his hair. _“Fuck. I wish you were here right now…”_

“I do too…”

_“I’ll be right back. Gotta clean up real quick.”_

Her view goes to his ceiling when he leaves his room. Pidge turns on her side, curling up into a ball, pleased by the fact that Lance seems to want to talk to her just as much as she wants to talk to him.

Her lips pull up in a goofy smile she can't seem to contain.


	2. Chapter 2

The return from the break is rife with an onslaught of work Pidge doesn’t expect. RAs are expected to return a week early and as such, Coran schedules staff meetings every night to plan for events, some more protocol training (especially for the five Arus RAs), and just a rehashing of rules and regulations regarding drugs and alcohol they need to make sure they are enforcing. As usual, everyone plays the part of the dutiful RA to Coran’s face, but aside from the resident advisors in the freshman dorms, Pidge knows not one of the others actually do room checks for alcohol.

(Quite frankly she doesn’t want to check her residents’ rooms because she’s scared of what she’ll find).

Pidge spends most of the meeting texting Rizavi, making plans for a pre-semester movie night in Pidge’s room, since Rizavi will be driving back up to campus in an hour. Pidge texts Lance too, some random message that she’s back on campus already, though she doesn’t expect him to answer. He’d mentioned something about a delayed flight, so she thinks he’ll probably be too exhausted to respond today, and he’ll likely go straight to sleep as soon as he arrives.

But when she trudges back into her room after the long meeting, she opens the door to find Lance in her room, looking every bit as delicious as she remembers. (More so, actually). He definitely needs a haircut soon and he looks a little exhausted and his face is scruffy, but Pidge’s heart still lurches in her chest when she sees him.

“Lance!” She’s not sure what compels her to run up and give him a hug, but he squeezes her back with a chuckle. It’s so unbelievably satisfying to feel his arms around her after craving it all break. “I thought your flight got delayed. Weren’t you planning to stop by tomorrow?”

“Yeah. But I kind of wanted to see you.” He leans back and gently tugs the end of her recently chopped locks. “You got a haircut. It suits you.”

“Just felt like making a change. New year, new me thing.”

Lance tucks the loose piece of hair behind her ear. “Well, you look beautiful.”

She blushes, surprised by the sweet compliment, but also a bit confused because he’s kind of being sappy and it’s not like she doesn’t like it, but it’s just unexpected is all. She’d kind of expected her clothes to be off by now, to be honest.

“Not that I don’t appreciate it, but… what is all this for?”

“I dunno…” His smile is kind of goofy, full of lazy affection, and her heart gives a startled thump. “I just kind of missed you, I guess.”

“Ohhh, there it is,” Pidge jokes, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and hopping into his arms when he hoists her up. “Missed _me_? Or certain parts of me?”

“I can’t lie. Certain parts were definitely on my mind quite a bit…”

She answers with a laugh and pulls him in to claim his mouth with hers. They kiss like they’re in no rush, exploring each other’s mouths as if reacquainting themselves with one another after so many weeks without each other’s physical presence. Everything feels unhurried, like they have all the time in the world when they end up making out on her bed. And she doesn’t mind it, even if she’s been fantasizing about how intense their reunion would be when they finally could have the chance to screw each other again.

But it is intense.

Just in a different way that she can’t pinpoint and they’re not even having sex.

It’s not like Lance is _soft_ with her or anything, but there’s just something about the way he kisses her, the way he touches her, strokes her legs, grasps her hips, the way he smiles against her mouth when they break apart that makes her stomach flutter and sets her pulse alight. It’s a dance they’ve done so many times, but it’s _different_ somehow, and it confuses her.

“Katie, I’m gonna be real honest…” Lance groans when she starts sucking on his neck, nipping him lightly with her teeth as she trails her hands up and down his chest under his shirt. “I’m way too jet lagged for sex right now.”

Pidge laughs when he slumps beside her with a tired yawn. He looks dead tired from travelling. But she’d assumed he’d stop by her room tomorrow, so today’s presence is an added bonus. She’s fine with waiting.

“I figured. It’s okay; I’m not in a rush to fuck.” She shifts over so he can lie down comfortably, her elbow propped up on her pillow as she watches him. Lance’s eyes are fatigued, and Pidge brushes his hair off of his forehead, gently encouraging him to get comfortable so he can rest. “I mean yeah, I was hoping for it and all, but you’ve had a long trip and you need your rest.”

Lance hums, draping an arm loosely around her torso and sliding closer until he’s snuggled up against her.

“You don’t mind me being in here?” he mumbles, his face already nestled in the crook of her neck as he breathes deeply. “I can go to my own room, but… has anyone ever told you you smell like fabric softener?”

Pidge snorts and rolls her eyes. “Can’t say that they have, ya weirdo.”

They’re quiet for a while, Lance’s breathing even and slowing with each passing second, and with each passing second, Pidge wants to tell him what she’d done over the break. She’d wanted to hold off on telling him her news until later, but she can’t really contain it anymore.

“Hey… I kind of have a surprise from over break, but I don’t know if I should tell you yet because it’s a little much.”

“A surprise? What? Are you like pregnant or something?” Lance mumbles, still nuzzling her neck with his nose. “Wow. No Arus guy has gotten a girl pregnant before. I guess I’d be going in the Arus Hall of Fame for that…”

“No, you moron!”

“I mean, I’ll take responsibility for Little Pidgeon.” She can feel his lips smirking against her skin when he shifts so his hand can rest protectively on her navel. “You don’t have to go through it alone.”

“Lance, that’s not it.” She flicks his hand off her abdomen with a laugh. “My mom took me to the gynae and I started birth control.”

He stills for a moment, brows furrowing before he pulls away from her with a contemplative look. For the first time ever, he’s pretty speechless and his scrutiny makes her stomach roil in unease. She can’t make out his expression, and she wonders if now was not the best time to bring this up. She knows what the implications are, and Lance definitely knows too, if the odd, pensive look on his face is any indication.

“…Huh.”

“I just, umm… I thought it would be easier, and more— and more, you know… fun. For umm… us,” she continues, less confidently, licking her lips anxiously when he still stares at her without saying anything. “I mean, but it’s like not an issue if you don’t want to… uh, but if you want to stop using… y-you know… since we’re doing the whole exclusive thing at school. I mean, I wouldn’t mind it. I’m not opposed.”

“When’d you decide this?” Lance asks, though she still can’t get a good read on his vibe.

Her cheeks flame in embarrassment. “After the first time we had phone sex…”

Pidge averts her gaze to focus on one of the shells of his necklace instead of his eyes. She’s so nervous right now and she can’t tell what he’s thinking and she doesn’t know how she’d thought this conversation would turn out, but this isn’t it and now she wishes she’d just kept it to herself. Condomless sex is kind of a big deal. And she’d known that when she told her mom she wanted to start taking the pill. But it’d just made so much sense to her at the time. She and Lance still don’t know each other _that_ well, but despite that, she trusts him immensely.

And definitely trusts him enough to do something with him she’d never done with anyone else before, not even her ex who she’d been with for five months.

“We’d just need to get tested again one more time but I don’t intend to sleep with anyone else, and we can’t do condomless if you still want to hook up with other people during breaks like you did over winter break, so it’s up to you and I’m not trying to make you change yourself or anything, or you know, _commit_ to me or something, I promise, but the option is available, so your call.”

She says it all in one breath, thinking she’s definitely scared him off or something—who goes on birth control for a fuck buddy of three months anyway???—but Lance’s lips tug up into a warm, genuine smile. And she’s taken aback by what she thinks might be relief in his gaze, which confuses her yet again.

“I wasn’t with anyone else over the break, unless you count a bunch of pregnant cows with hormones through the roof.”

Pidge chews on her lower lip. “So… what are you saying? Do you— do you want to?”

“Yeah. I’ll get tested again for peace of mind and all.” He cradles her cheek and closes the distance to pull her in for a slow, reassuring kiss. “You really are a sight for sore eyes, you know that? All I could think about over the break was you.”

Pidge’s head spins. She can’t believe he’d actually agreed to something that’s kind of crazy. She’s not sure what that means, but the thought forms dancing butterflies in her stomach and giddiness bubbles in her chest. She’s not sure what she sees in his eyes, but warmth soars through her body and she leans down slowly, meeting his lips in a pervasive kiss that leaves her delirious. She shifts over and straddles his waist, slipping her tongue in his mouth as he slides his arms around her to grasp her ass.

And then her door swings open and Rizavi walks in unannounced, waving around a DVD.

“Get ready for the best damn—!”

They snap their gazes over to her, and Pidge’s eyes go wide in horror. There’s a long silence as Rizavi blinks at them. Pidge tries to think of ten thousand different ways to explain what is going on and ten thousand different excuses she could use to explain why she’s on top of Lance making out with him in her bed. But there’s really no way to look at this and not think it’s exactly what it looks like.

_At least you’re not naked…_

But all the possible humour in the situation is lost when Rizavi’s eyes go bright, a look on her face like Pidge is about to go through hell of some sort.

“…Oh fuck.” Pidge curses under her breath, climbing off of Lance and wondering if she should pull Rizavi out of her room to do damage control real quick.

Rizavi’s lips fold in as she tries to keep from laughing, her brows high on her forehead. “‘Sup McClain. How was your holiday break?”

“Not bad actually. It’s always great to see my family in one place.” Lance smiles, leaning back against her pillow with his arms behind his head. “How was yours?”

“Could be better.” She shrugs, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “I spent the first few days sleeping like the dead after that tumultuous finals period and of course I had to pretend to be a perfect daughter around my super conservative family—worst part, by the way—oh and I talked with my best friend over the break asking if she was going to hook up with one of her old high school friends she’d hung out with and she told me she wasn’t hooking up with anyone right now. Funny.”

Pidge winces, toying with the quilt on her bed. “Well, we weren’t hooking up over the break. Technically, I didn’t lie…”

“Yeah, you did,” Lance drawls, unbothered by Pidge’s death glare. “I think phone sex counts.”

“Phone sex!” Rizavi’s exclamation is accompanied by a loud obnoxious, fake laugh that cuts off abruptly with a dry look that’s completely uncharacteristic on her face. “Wow, who are you?”

“Oh c’mon, Riz. Really?”

“I mean, how do you expect me to react?” she purses her lips, raising a brow as she gestures between the two of them. “Judging by your comfortable arrangement, it’s pretty obvious that this isn’t a recent development, which definitely begs the question of how the hell you went from thinking some guy is the absolute devil to making babies with him.”

Lance cracks up, finding the whole thing amusing despite Pidge scowling at him over her shoulder.

“We’re not making babies!”

Rizavi waves off her comment. “So I’m not really sure how to react. I was thinking something along the lines of _‘Oh em gee! You’re sleeping with Lance?! Is the sex good? Is the sex great?!’_. But I don’t even feel like asking because I kind of just want to know why you didn’t tell me, Caterina.”

Pidge winces, running a hand through her hair and getting confused for a second when she remembers she can’t play with the ends of her hair the way she’d used to. Rizavi had used her first name. And not even her preferred one. And Pidge knows despite her general chill disposition that Rizavi is actually upset about this.

“I’m sorry, Nadia,” Pidge finally says, giving her a sheepish look. “I should have told you about Lance. I just… we were— _are_ —just fooling around so I didn’t think it was that big of a deal. Or at least, I didn’t want to make it that big of a deal.”

Honestly, to her, the less people that learn of her tryst, the easier it will be to clean up the mess if she and Lance end up stopping this in the future. Less explanations to give and all.

Rizavi seems to catch her drift too, because after a few seconds of their stare down, her lips pull up in a soft smile.

“Wow, first name and everything, huh? You really are sorry.”

She really does feel horrible. Rizavi tells her everything—especially about momentous occasions in her life—and Pidge is normally the same way, so she’s not sure why she hadn’t thought to just let Rizavi know. Aside from some merciless teasing, Rizavi is definitely understanding.

“I promise I’ll make it up to you for keeping this secret this long.”

“You better. I’ll be nice and go away for a couple hours, but you owe me the mother of all explanations _tonight_.” Rizavi points a menacing finger at her. “And you’d better make it juicy too. Feel free to use explicit details to paint a cinematic portrait. If you’re not red in the face during your explanation, I’ll know you’re lying.”

Pidge snorts and nods. “Okay. I promise.”

“Good. Enjoy your dick appointment~”

Rizavi leaves in a flourish with a wave and a laugh. Pidge tries to get off her bed to lock the door in case someone else decides to pop by, but Lance tugs her back down by her shirt. He snuggles up to her front again, arms tight around her midriff, legs tangling with hers and she’s pretty much stuck after that.

“The door is unlocked, Lance. What if someone else comes in?”

“I’ll hide under the covers or something. Let me nap. I’m exhausted and you’re comfortable.”

Pidge wants to protest, but he curls up in her arms, his ear against her heart, and she does have some stuff she wants to start planning and scheduling before classes start up tomorrow, but it doesn’t hurt to just chill with him for a bit. And Lance is like a cute, needy puppy right now and he’s always pampering her and she doesn’t mind returning the favour.

She hums softly to herself, carding her hand through his hair as he falls asleep.

…

The beginning of the semester is… _strange_ to say the least.

For some reason, Pidge is inordinately busy the first two weeks or Lance is volunteering or hanging out with friends or shadowing so they don’t actually get a chance to meet up the way they’d been planning. And the more days they miss that chance, the stronger the urge gets to be with him.

They haven’t fucked at all since coming back, and while she knows it’s not a _necessity_ , every passing day makes her urges grow. Lance had gotten tested and sent her a picture of his results, so they’re good to go, but there’s a bit of hesitation on both their parts and she isn’t exactly sure why. She wants it. And she knows he does too, but whenever she starts thinking about it, her pulse starts thrumming anxiously.

She doesn’t think the idea of screwing without a condom had messed them up, but she does think maybe it put some weird pressure on this thing between them.

It’s only by chance that they finally get a chance to hang out when Hunk throws a beginning of semester bash at his place doubling as his 21st birthday celebration. Pidge originally doesn’t plan to go so she can finish some schoolwork, but Lance sends her a text hoping to see her there and Rizavi accidentally sees it. When she finds out they’ve been “avoiding” each other, it’s pretty much decided that they’re going. So despite Pidge’s reservations, she gets all dolled up with Rizavi, pre-gaming in her room and taking shots (of a secret vodka she’d stolen from Keith) before they head to the party.

Pidge doesn’t see Lance initially, but after walking around a bit, she finds the soft mop of his brown hair. He’s pretty deeply enthralled in a game of pong with Kinkade and some other people, and no way is she making the first move. Nor is she going to walk right up to him when he’s surrounded by all these people who don’t need to know their situation.

What is she supposed to do? Kiss him in front of everyone as a greeting?

Sure, they’re pretty close in some way. But they’re not even traditional friends who hang out in campus spaces outside of their rooms, so to begin with, it’d be weird as fuck if she approached him at all.

Rizavi actually gives her a brilliant idea to get his attention, and when a good song comes on, Pidge climbs up on the kitchen counter and starts to dance as dirty as she can, not even caring that she’s definitely flashing people peeks under her skirt. She’s not particularly doing it to get anyone’s attention _but_ Lance, but it is kind of cool how people start gathering around the kitchen island hooting and hollering as she puts on a show. And it’s the best feeling ever when she finishes her little solo by sliding into a slow split and the drunk people around her literally go wild.

(And if she’s showing off a little, who cares? She has to put all those years of forced dance lessons to use somehow).

She does make eye contact with Lance as she climbs off the counter, a brief moment as she walks away from the area, but the look on his face—dark, intense, seriously aroused—makes her knees weak.

Neither of them approaches the other after that, but they somehow always end up in the same area, and though they glance at each other several times, neither of them leaves their respective groups to approach the other. It makes her all hot and bothered, the room feeling abnormally warm every time she can feel his eyes on her. Pidge knows she desperately needs to cool down, so when it gets too much, she excuses herself from her conversation and slides herself through the mess of bodies to go to the bathroom.

She shuts the door and flicks on the light, running a hand through her mussed hair and licking her lips as she stares at her flushed face. The booming party being muffled by the door helps her to get out of the craziness for a second. The alcohol is making her even more flustered than normal, and she knows she really needs to calm down because she’s so painfully aroused and nothing is probably going to happen until well after the party.

Pidge splashes her face with some cold water and wipes it off while exhaling slowly. She’s about to splash some more when someone knocks on the door.

“Someone’s in here,” she calls out so they can hear her over the music.

The door creaks open regardless and Lance is on the other side, a vexed smirk on his face and looking super disgruntled. Electricity crackles up her spine, and she swallows hard, turning to face him as her arousal flares up tenfold.

“That was quite the show you put on…” Lance says in a low voice, leaning against the door frame. “If your goal was to torture me, you definitely succeeded.”

Pidge licks her lips and his eyes drop straight to her mouth. “Not really sure what you’re talking about.”

“You really like to play games, huh?”

A sharp thrill surges through her when he ambles into the room, grabs her waist and crushes his mouth to hers, hot and pervasive. His mouth is demanding on hers, hands gripping her tight, and Pidge winds her arms around his neck, fingers clawing into his hair as he kicks the door shut. She gives into the heated kiss willingly, stumbling backwards when he walks her back and presses her against the counter.

It’s a mess of wandering hands and twining tongues, intermittent moans of need, frantic unbuttoning of jeans and rucking up of skirts and Lance groans deep in his throat when she grinds against his erection. Pidge knows this is going to end pretty fast when he hitches her sharply onto the counter, his fingers shoving aside her panties and sliding between her legs. She arches her hips closer, her head knocking against the mirror and letting out a breathless ‘ _oh’_ when he pushes two fingers in her and steadily strokes her. It’s rough and she’s not fully prepared, but she’s turned on beyond belief.

She kneads him through his boxers, trailing her nails along the underside of his cock, and Lance grunts, leaning back into her to press a hard kiss to her mouth. An outrageous anticipation far stronger than she can control builds in her as their tongues taste each other.

“ _Lance_ …” she whines, and he seems to understand what she wants with little else said.

She pulls him out of his underwear, his cock slick with his precum, and guides him to her entrance as Lance hikes her legs on his waist and grips her hips. In one fluid motion, he pulls her hips up and imbeds himself in her so deeply, they both let out harsh, desperate gasps against each other’s mouths. Incomprehensible noises leave her lips from finally feeling what she’d wanted for so long.

And just like that, a dam bursts and all the tension from not being able to fuck collides in one perfect moment.

The heat that radiates inside her nearly makes her scream, and she curls her head into crook of Lance’s neck when he starts thrusting hard and fast. It’s so much more intense of a sensation, way more fantastic in the drag of his cock along her walls, how smooth and hard he feels, the throbbing heat filling her up over and over. It’s unlike anything she’s ever experienced before, and with each hard thrust, her cries grow louder, her hips meeting his faster, their rhythm out of control.

Lance’s moan drifts in her ear, his hips snapping more sharply, and Pidge claws his shoulders, closing her eyes as the world becomes a blur and she can’t do much else but focus on the mindblowing intensity of the perfect sensation. She whimpers, her toes curling as she careens towards pure bliss. One of her sandals falls off her foot as he drives into her with reckless abandon and heat crackles in her body when Lance curls her hair into his fist and tugs her head back to suck on her neck. He’s absolutely bruising her hip with how roughly he’s gripping her and he’s not even trying to be careful about marking up her neck, and it’s everything she’s needed.

All the pent up tension comes to a head, and Pidge can’t seem to catch her breath at all, overwhelmed every time she feels him hit that perfect spot inside her. It’s a little too wild and the blistering heat in the bathroom makes them stick together from their sweat. She can’t get enough of this feeling.

Lance curses, groaning her name like a prayer when he can’t hold off anymore. His muscles bunch up under her hands as his orgasm rips through him, and Lance’s strained moan and the pulsing inside her drives her over the edge. He reaches between them and grazes her clit and she unravels almost immediately. Before she knows it, Pidge’s whole body clenches up tight and snaps, a shattering release that makes white lights dance behind her eyes. She can’t help but shriek out his name when she comes, hoping that the noise of the party outside drowns out the noise they’re making.

They’re completely silent, several long moments devoted to their laboured breathing and struggles to stop the spinning of the room as they cling to each other, foreheads pressed against each other’s. Without a doubt, going condomless is leagues better than anything else they’ve done in the past. She craves it again.

But there’s only one bathroom in this apartment and sooner or later, someone is going to come around needing to use it.

Pidge taps him on the shoulder as a reminder they can’t stay like this, and Lance reluctantly pulls out of her, his breathing still a little uneven. The wet slosh and seeing both their fluids on his dick makes heat tingle between her legs. From the look on Lance’s face and the fact that he’s still half hard, she knows this is definitely not enough for him either. She’s not sure why they’d waited this long to have each other again, but now that they’ve broken that barrier, she’s sure it’s going to be pretty nonstop the rest of the weekend and probably all of next week.

He gives her a bit of space, tucking himself into his boxers after wiping himself down with some tissue paper. Pidge twists around to inspect her neck in the mirror. There are a couple angry red marks that will likely be purple by the end of the night, and she wants to be mad, but she’d constantly marked up his body last semester, so she supposes it’s kind of fair. At least it’s still a little cold so wearing a light scarf won’t make it obvious that she’s hiding them.

But she’ll definitely have to talk to him about leaving them in _obvious_ places, especially now that her hair can’t cover it.

“We should probably leave here soon,” Pidge says, cringing when she feels a bit of fluid slowly trickling from between her legs as she shifts to the edge of the counter. “I need to clean up though.”

“Okay. You got work to do after the party?” Lance asks, running his fingers through her hair to smooth out the parts he’d rumpled with his hand.

He’s really soft about it though and super gentle and it throws Pidge off because he’s being a lot more attentive than she would have expected for a quick tryst in the bathroom. It makes her feel pretty special though, and she finds herself grinning up at him as she toys with a button on his shirt.

“Yeah, but I’d rather spend time with you.” Pidge kicks her legs back and forth. “You wanna stay over tonight? We could watch a movie.”

“I don’t mind staying as long as you order pizza and garlic knots or something. I require sustenance.” Lance leans down to give her a quick kiss when she puckers her lips at him. “But I hope you know I definitely won’t be paying attention to a movie.”

“Duh. It’s called Netflix and Chill for a reason.”

He chuckles, straightening himself in his pants one more time. “I’ll text you later.”

With that, Lance slips out the door, giving her a little salute before he disappears on the other side. Pidge takes some extra time to clean herself up. Once she’s sure that she’s cleared most all of the cum from inside her and wiped down the sink counter, she finally leaves the bathroom.

She walks by some of the couples making out in the hallway, her face completely flushed. It’s a little surreal that she’d just gotten fucked in someone’s bathroom at a house party. She feels like a daredevil and it’s insane to her that they’re actually going to get away with it until she rounds the corner back to the living room and runs right into Rizavi, standing by the corner and giving her a suspicious look.

“Where’ve you been, Pidgey?”

Caught off guard, she blushes in spite of herself, and she knows Rizavi has figured it out when her eyes go wide and a sly, knowing smile spreads across her face.

“ _Holy shit_. You were doing it with Lance somewhere. You animals!”

“Riz…” Pidge groans, latching onto Rizavi and hiding her face in her shoulder, still in disbelief over it herself. “Stop it!”

Rizavi cackles loudly. “Who are you and what have you done to my frigid friend?”

…

On Valentine’s Day, Pidge’s plan is to spend her day studying rabidly for an exam coming up soon, especially now that her afternoon lecture had gotten cancelled.

But her time is interrupted by the little mini celebration all the Arus RAs had agreed upon. It isn’t supposed to be anything huge, but each floor is supposed to set up a cute little event in their common room. Pidge had set up a table with pink frosted sugar cookies and sparkling cider for her residents to have on their way to and back from classes and back from whatever other afternoon activities they have. She’d put little paper boxes on everyone’s doors and left a box of markers and Valentine coloured paper on another table for them to leave cute little notes and cards to each other if they want.

Pidge spends about twenty minutes making sure to leave paper hearts with congenial personal messages in each box. Well… except Lance’s which she hides under his pillow while both he and Keith are in class.

(And that’s only because it says ‘Happy Valentine’s Day to the best dick in Arus. Will you be mine?’ and if Keith accidentally finds that note, she’ll be sincerely embarrassed).

Keith, she gets a huge box of chocolates which she leaves on his bed. And he surprises her during dinner with a stuffed Snoopy toy holding out a heart to her as if he pulled it out of his own chest. There’s a bloody gaping hole in its chest and ‘ _Be Mine?_ ’ is stitched on the heart. Pidge _has to_ laugh because every gift he gets her is always brilliantly shitty and she never knows where he finds these monstrosities.

When she comes back to her floor after getting Bestie Valentine’s Day doughnuts with Rizavi, there’s shattered glass all over the common room and sticky splatters from the sparkling cider and some smashed up cookies stuck to the window and torn up paper strewn all over the floor and someone had drawn a giant dick on the wall with a marker. And on top of that she finds not one, not two, but _three_ full condoms on various couches.

“What the fuck happened…? Some kind of orgy?” she grumbles with a frustrated groan.

Pidge wants to strangle them all while she cleans it up, itching to call another floor meeting, but she knows today is when everyone usually spends Valentine’s Day doing shit with their SOs and she doesn’t want to be that asshole RA who ruins their plans.

(Even if they totally ruined hers to study by making such a damn mess!).

“The things I do for these morons…” Pidge growls, texting Keith that if he knows who participated in the Valentine’s Day orgy, he’d better tell her otherwise she’s going to start spreading around the fact that Keith’s mom is a famous supermodel.

She gets three names in five minutes and it’s not even guys on her floor and more sleuthing—she texts Kinkade, the de facto alpha of their floor pack—alerts her to the fact that there’s apparently a rivalry between floors four and five and that this is considered an official declaration of war. So she goes up one floor and hurls all of the condoms in their common room. And then slices them open with the handle of her broom and smears the spunk on their main floor. She hates the Arus bullshit, but no way is she not defending her floor’s honour.

Pidge is still mad at her own guys though for trashing the rest of the room, although she can only blame herself for forgetting she’s in a dorm of utter ignoramuses. Next time she hosts a celebration, she’ll have to chaperone. She slams the door as she puts the cleaning supplies back in the hall closet and decides maybe she will have to crank open that bottle of wine Keith had gotten her post-Christmas.

But when she gets to her door, she finds a bouquet of roses set in front of it with a card. All the guys apparently had pitched in to buy it for her and all thirty had signed the card, thanking her for being such a chill RA. It’s so touching, and so unexpected that for a second, she feels guilty that she’d gotten so pissed at her boys. They’re annoying as fuck, sure, but they’re all pretty sweet to her.

Pidge is all smiles when she opens her door, cradling her roses like they’re the most precious thing she’s ever held.

And then she very nearly drops everything in her hands because there, standing nonchalantly in the middle of her room, is a very naked Lance with ribbon all around him and a pull bow stuck to his dick. Her jaw drops as she blinks at him.

“About time you showed up,” he says, a brow raised expectantly.

“…What the heck are you doing?” Pidge cracks up, setting her roses on top of her mini-fridge and kicking her shoes off on the pile in the middle of her room.

“You asked my dick if he wanted to be yours and he answered yes.” Lance walks towards her, and Pidge backs up, trying to keep her eyes up and not on his stupid ribbon covered dick. “It’s my gift to you.”

She snorts, trying futilely to hold him off when she’s laughing so hard. “Get away from me!”

He plants his hands on her shoulders and sits her down on the futon. Pidge shields her eyes, groaning helplessly as he sets his knees on either side of her, practically straddling her and blocking her from finding any way to move.

“Lance! Get your dick out of my face!”

He can barely keep a straight face. “You’re gonna hurt his feelings, Katie. He came all the way out to play just because you asked him.”

“I didn’t ask you to do all this, you dork!” She groans with a laugh again, just barely peeking out from between her fingertips at his decorated appendage. “You’re so _corny_.”

“It’s a gift. Anyway… the next two hours are all about you, baby,” Lance mutters, a playful look dancing in his eyes as he moves her hands from her face and gently tilts her chin up. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

Pidge can’t deny the hammering of her heart in her chest, and she’s not sure what it is about the way Lance is looking at her, but they’re staring at each other with these goofy smiles and when he leans down and kisses her, softer than normal, the way her heart skips a beat in her chest frightens her for a moment.

Something feels weird—but not in a bad way necessarily—and she’s distracted from her thoughts as Lance shifts her so she’s lying down on the couch. He looms over her, his gaze hooded, equal parts lust and something else that makes her pulse race. And she wants to clear her head and analyse the situation as she’s prone to do, but it’s hard to with a naked Lance on top of her, slowly stripping her clothes and licking her overheated skin and sucking on her breasts and caressing her as he travels down her body. It’s not enough and too much at once, riling her up to the point that she’s a panting mess, each breath she takes uneven and growing stilted with each passing second.

“Lance… I-I have work to finish…” she moans, spreading her legs wider when his hand finally cups her and he trails a finger along her.

“So do I.” A pleased smirk graces his lips when she whimpers. “I think mine takes precedence.”

And all coherent thoughts lose their meaning when his mouth replaces his hand.

When she can’t take anymore, he crawls back over her and kisses her again, and by that point, she no longer really cares about her study plans. Pidge tugs him closer, deciding she can put it off for a few hours, and it’s worth it when he fucks her slow and easy, each thrust as deep in her as possible and the rising heat building and building in a rising crescendo until Pidge is a writhing mess. Somehow, he draws the longest orgasm of her life out of her.

They wind up breaking a bunch of the rungs on her couch going at it hard the next few rounds, but basking in the afterglow, Pidge can’t find it in herself to care because all she can think about is how it feels _right_ being with Lance like this. She can’t stop smiling against his shoulder, clutching him tight like she doesn’t want to be anywhere else.

“Hey, you know…” Lance mutters, languidly trailing his fingers along her spine as she lazes about on top of him, near catatonic and completely sated. A shower is in order because not only are they sweaty but she’s also sticky between her legs and kind of gross, but Lance’s chest rising up and down steadily is a comfort. “My gift is actually pretty useful. You can reuse the bow for someone else’s gift.”

“Umm, I think there’d be something a little messed up about using your Penis Ribbon for someone else’s gift.” She laughs. “I can’t even give anyone that horror story Snoopy. Stuck with it. It’s going to haunt my nightmares now and if I try to get rid of it, it’ll claw back from the depths of hell to find me.”

He chuckles in an exhale. “Keith is really fucked up to give you that godawful thing.”

“Definitely not as awful as your dick with a bow though,” she snarks, though the effect is marred by her yawn.

“I didn’t hear you complaining a few minutes ago…” Lance grumbles, pinching her ass, so she sleepily slaps his chest. “I give and I give and this is the thanks I get.”

“I would be nicer, but I’m too exhausted to try. You completely wore me out.”

“So take a nap.” He shifts a bit so they can get more comfortable on the small futon. “I’ll wake you up in thirty minutes so you can get your work done.”

“Hmm thanks…” She smiles, dropping a barely there kiss on his pec before letting her eyes drift closed. “Happy Valentine’s Day, moron.”

She knows they have to be breaking all kinds of fuck buddy rules by spending Valentine’s Day together, but Lance doesn’t seem to want to be anywhere else and that simultaneously scares and excites her.

…

As midterms start approaching, Pidge gets a little restless, and at first, she attributes it to her approaching deadlines and the looming dates of exams (she has three in one day unfortunately), and she wants to say maybe she’s getting burned out, but she knows that’s absolute horse shit.

Everything is perfectly fine. Ryner had even taken her out to dinner the previous Sunday to go over all her plans again and Pidge knows her trajectory is still good. She’s got everything under control. Her grades are perfect. She’s still managing her assignments at least a week before they’re due.

Business as usual.

Except she wants to see Lance all the time and even when he walks in her room to chat, she pretty much jumps his bones, and even then, it’s not enough. Well, the sex _is_ enough. She’s perfectly satisfied with it, but she’s also kind of not…

Pidge had expected this at some point, considering she’s been connecting a lot of her emotions with the sex, and she can at least admit to herself that she kind of wants a little something more but she’s not sure _what_ she’s looking for from him. It’s not like he doesn’t open up to her. They’re pretty involved, and they know a lot about each other’s lives for not being friends in a traditional sense of the word. And oddly enough, she’s still not really that interested in a friendship with Lance, but she does want to spend time with him. All she knows is that she gets a rush like nothing else when she’s with Lance and it’s not even necessarily because of the sex.

And it makes her feel like avoiding him because she should not be walking by his room every day while doing her quick hall checks and slowing down her pace in hopes that he might walk out or something. Or constantly pretending she has to talk to Keith about something in the evenings just so she can see Lance when they’re both too busy to hook up.

(And above that she absolutely _shouldn’t_ be disappointed when he’s not in).

Pidge doesn’t want to stop hooking up with him to resolve her issues, so instead she does what she does best: takes on so much work that between her little rendezvous with Lance, she’s so bogged down with work that she can’t even have time to think about things.

Only now she’s kind of regretting picking up Seok Jin’s request for her to cover his on-duty shift on Saturday morning. She’d found out he was supposed to have a shift from six to eleven and though Pidge is used to waking up early from her internship last semester, this is at least two hours earlier than what she’s used to.

It’s brutal. She drags herself out of bed around five, her upper eyelids practically glued to the lower lids, pulls on the first pair of dirty leggings and baggy hoodie she steps on, and decides she desperately needs caffeine to help her get through this crap.

She ends up trudging to the Commons to inhale coffee and it’s still dark out and honestly she might as well be sleepwalking because she’s not registering anything or processing new information.

Not even when Lance pops up beside her as she’s perusing the soda in the fridges. She feels a presence as her mind goes to war over whether she should get an energy drink and mix it in coffee. But despite her favourite scent drifting into her nose, she doesn’t actually pick up on the fact that he’s nearby until he speaks.

“You look dead on your feet, Katie,” he muses and her eyes drift dully over to him, blinking slowly because she’s confused. “Why are you up this early?”

“I’m on duty as cover today. Six. I need caffeine.” The Monster energy drink is calling to her, but she’d seen what some of the guys on her floor become after drinking it. A five-hour energy drink might be the move here. “Why are you up?”

Lance opens up an adjacent freezer door and pulls out a bottle of cranberry juice, deliberating over it before deciding to put it back. “Thought I’d watch the sun rise this morning.”

“What? You can’t see the sun rise from our dorm.”

“I lived in Naxzela my freshman year,” Lance explains, watching her as she pulls out a Monster and a five-hour energy and turns them sideways to check the nutrition facts. Neither are ideal, and honestly, they’ll probably make her sick, but she’s desperate to shuck away her drowsiness. “There’s a balcony on the third floor that faces the sunrise, and every once in a while when I need to think I’ll go and watch it.”

Pidge frowns as she puts them both back. “How? You can’t get on other floors of dorms if you’re not a resident of that dorm.”

As an RA, she does have access to all floors of all dorms, but she isn’t about to break the rules like that. The contract they’d been made to sign is very strict about stuff like this.

“I have my ways.”

Lance’s saucy wink is accompanied by that slow pull of his lips into a smile, and she’s too tired to stop her mouth from turning down in an unimpressed frown. She really doesn’t like the sound of that. He’s acting playful and secretive, yes, but right now she’s a cranky little bitch and sleep deprived and all she’s hearing is that he might have had some freshman he’d hooked up with lowkey who lets him up.

“Lance, please go away,” she says tiredly, scrubbing a hand over her face. “I’m too tired for your moronic Lance-isms.”

He seems to figure out pretty quickly what her issue is because he moves between her and the freezers and rests his hands on her shoulders with a warm smile.

“Sorry, babe. I’ll keep the joking to a minimum until you’ve gotten enough caffeine in you.” Lance smoothly brushes out her dishevelled bangs on her forehead. “The security guard of the dorm has a son currently in the ward of the children’s hospital I volunteer at. Melvin talks about me all the time apparently, so Joe lets me get in the dorm to sit on the balcony. There’s no secret girl. Don’t be sad.”

Her face flushes, and she makes an indignant noise of disagreement. “I’m not sad!”

And she starts to wonder when he’d started being able to read her like an open book.

“Anyway, it’s still a little chilly in the mornings.” As if to emphasise his point, he tugs his scarf tighter around himself. “If it’s caffeine you need I’ll buy you something warm.”

And before she can protest or say anything, he takes her hand and tugs her with him to the Starbucks knockoff coffee store in their Commons.

(Galaxy Greenbacks, they call it. It’s so fucking obvious and the menu is exactly the same to the point of being ridiculous. The only difference is no Italian-named sizes that none of the customers can ever pronounce right).

Even so, Pidge feels kind of giddy about how nonchalant he is about buying her stuff and she’s not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, so she orders herself a large coffee with a crap ton of pumps of vanilla and mocha and two espresso shots in it while Lance gets himself a caramel apple spice—excuse her: a _spiced caramel apple cider_ —and a warmed honey maple muffin for them to share. She catches Lance giving her a strange look as she’s sipping on her coffee while they wait for his drink.

“You said you’d buy. Don’t complain that I’m taking advantage.”

“I don’t mind spending money on you,” Lance says, a spark of mischief dancing in his gaze. “But are you sure you should be drinking that? Coffee stunts your growth.”

“Lance,” she gives him a dry look as she takes a slow slorp of her piping hot drink, “I’ve been the same height since I was thirteen. I’m pretty sure coffee isn’t going to change anything at this point.”

That draws a genuine laugh out of him, which brings a smile to her lips. It’s honestly strange. They’re getting coffee together in the early morning, holding hands, plus he’d paid for her. It’s like a date, in all the ways it shouldn’t be, but Lance seems to have no problem with it and she’s pretty okay with it, even though it makes absolutely no sense for them to act this way considering how they’d begun their relationship.

It’s funny.

Pidge has made such an effort keeping her thing with Lance on the down-low, but right now, if any one of their friends saw them like this, she wouldn’t mind it. She also wouldn’t mind spending more time like this with Lance, all close with easy camaraderie between them. It’s nice.

At least, that’s what she thinks, until some gorgeous, supermodel-esque girl comes around behind Lance and wraps her arms around his middle, pressing herself against him and putting her chin on his shoulder. Pidge is a little thrown off by her sudden arrival. But Lance doesn’t even flinch from the assault, instead reaching up to ruffle her hair with his free hand.

“Morning Lancey Lance~” she says in a sickly sweet voice, perfectly flirtatious with a hint of sultriness and even Pidge has to admit she’s impressed by the tactics of some of these seasoned flirts. “You and Kinkade still stopping by our suite tonight too?”

“Sure, but you guys never have real food at your kickbacks.”

“Not my fault my roommates are health nuts.” She playfully rolls her eyes. “I’ll ask Hunk if he can spare some of his rations for a poor growing boy.”

“Are you about to go running?”

“Yeah, I’m super pent up. And there’s no one I know who can help get rid of it. Well, aside from you…” She pouts, bringing up a hand to pinch his cheek as if scolding him. “If you weren’t being such a square we could have fun tonight.”

Lance laughs like it’s no big deal. “I told you, those days are behind me.”

For now, Pidge is sure he’s adding in his head.

They’re the unspoken words. Pidge is a temporary toy for him to play with until he gets bored.

She’s sure that’s what he means.

“Aww still? Fine. Whenever you’re done torturing yourself, I’ll be waiting~”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he jokes.

She plants a juicy kiss on his cheek and then goes off in a flourish, leaving behind a wave of a really nice fruity perfume.

Honestly, the whole interaction is a wakeup call.

Just because she’s someone he happens to be screwing exclusively at the moment, does not mean he’s into her or anything. She’s probably convenient for him, being on his floor and having a schedule that matches as far as their downtime goes. But in the grand scheme of things, he probably sees her just like he sees every other girl he’s hooked up with and is still friends with.

Pidge _isn’t_ special.

When the barista on floor calls out Lance’s name, Pidge wrenches her hand out of his as he goes to get it. He’d never be serious with Pidge and they’re not an item so why is she getting excited holding his hand? He probably holds everyone’s hand. He’s a pretty friendly, open guy and doesn’t shy away from physical affection towards his guy and girl friends. Pidge included, even though she’s only fuck buddy status.

It kind of hurts a little, but she’s glad she’d gotten this wakeup call as soon as she’d started thinking idiotically.

“I’m gonna go back to my room. Text me if you need physics help before your exam…” Pidge says at length, trying not to let her dejection seep into her tone.

“You’ve got thirty-five minutes before your shift.” Lance checks his watch with a frown. “Sunrise is at 5:34. Come watch it with me. You’ll make it back on time.”

“I have things to do…”

“A little break won’t hurt you.” He holds up the little muffin bag and shakes it gently. “And I bought this for both of us to share. How are we supposed to bond over a honey maple muffin if you leave?”

She’s gearing up to give him another excuse, but Lance’s gaze is imploring and he’s got a teasing, half smile on his face and he’s just way too cute to say no to. Especially since he isn’t doing anything wrong. He’s just being himself and it’s not his fault that she’d started looking a little too deeply into their interactions. Lance had told her point blank that he doesn’t want anything serious. How they are together probably doesn’t negate that.

“Fine. I’ll watch the stupid fucking sunrise with you.”

“Don’t get too excited…” Lance drawls in amusement, walking backwards in front of her until she starts following him out.

The walk to the freshman dormitories isn’t that far so it won’t take too long to get there, but even so, she stuffs her free hand in her pouch as they amble along, deciding to make sure he can’t try to hold her hand again. Thankfully, Lance doesn’t try.

Naxzela is definitely one of the nicer, more recently renovated freshman dorms, and high up there with Olkarion, where Pidge had been last year. It’s easily better than Taujeer though, a dorm so old the mould grandparents have great-grandbabies now and the roaches that live in the walls tell stories of a once thriving dorm everyone would brag about ending up in.

True to Lance’s word, the security guard lets them in, pleased to see Lance.

“Brought your girlfriend today, Lance?”

Even though he doesn’t say anything to the contrary, Lance’s laugh grates her nerves. It sounds like a frank dismissal of the implication, and it further sours Pidge’s mood. She’s a little put off by it, but she makes herself disregard it, reminding herself over and over that despite all the sleeping in each other’s beds and the weird Valentine’s Day night, she’d always known he isn’t the type to want a serious relationship.

At least, not with her.

“Katie wanted to see the sun rise,” he explains. “You can trust her too. She’s an RA here.”

They make small talk as she introduces herself to Joe and then he swipes them up to the third floor. As expected, it’s deathly quiet. They do pass one guy as he’s leaving, hickies all over his neck and the buttons of his shirt torn. He has no pants, and his boxers have awkward stains on them that he can’t really hide. His face flushes as they get off and he gets on the elevator, and Pidge knows he’s about to commence a walk of shame.

The balcony itself really does have a great view of the horizon on the park about two blocks away from their campus. Lance bypasses the chairs and leans against the railing, a look on his face like he’s at peace, so she joins him there. He doesn’t say much while they wait for the sun to break through the sky and show its first beams of light, and they mostly occupy their time finishing off the muffin. The coffee warms her chest as she drinks it, and despite how soured her mood currently is, she can’t deny the loveliness of the tranquillity of the moment. If utilised properly, this could very well create the right kind of ambiance for Lance to convince someone to hook up with him on the balcony.

(Something she’s sure he’s probably done a bunch of times).

“So do you normally bring people up here with you or what?” she asks, breaking off a piece of the top part with the sprinkled crystals of sugar. “Is this some patented Lance McClain tactic to snag some unsuspecting girl for a hookup?”

He smiles behind the rim of his cup, something small and honest as he takes a sip. “Actually, I’ve never told anyone about this. You’re the first.”

Pidge chews thoughtfully on her piece. “Why not? Messes up your image as the uncaring playboy?”

“You know, contrary to what you believe, I haven’t actually hooked up with _that_ many people. Messed around with yeah, but I’m particular about who I fuck.” Lance chuckles, tossing his empty cup in the trash can in the corner. “And nah. This place is just special to me. I couldn’t adjust well to college when I first started here and it’s super cliché, but I came out here to get a breather when I couldn’t sleep and I saw the sun rise and it was exactly what I needed to centre myself.”

“But you’re so easygoing…”

“Everyone has their off days. Before I started meeting people, Hunk was the only one I knew and he got himself a girlfriend in two days so…” He shrugs. “And now I come up here when I really need to think about some things.”

“Are you worried about physics?” she asks him in concern. Last time they’d studied, he seemed to have understood circuits well enough. “I can help you study some more later tonight if you want?”

The look Lance gives her is odd, like he’s contemplating something he wants to say, and she holds her breath for a beat. But the moment passes and he instead turns back towards the park.

“…Not particularly.”

She’s tempted to ask him what’s on his mind, but it’s his business whether he wants to share or not and honestly, she’s just a fuck buddy, so there’s no incentive for him to share at all. Besides, the sun begins to break through the horizon in a small gleaming ball of gold and they turn their attention to it rising.

Sentimental crap like this doesn’t interest Pidge in the least, but even she can’t deny the splendour of the sunrise. The way a gradient of gold melts into orange before becoming a spectacular cerulean. The rays of light hitting the thin clouds make them seem like they’re shimmering in the sky. Pidge rarely sits still long enough to appreciate things like this since every hour counts in her life, but she can definitely see how a freshman completely overwhelmed by the sudden independence and wildness of uni could chill out here and centre themselves.

The sun appears to be right under the clouds when her phone’s alarm goes off, informing her she has roughly fifteen minutes left. She still needs to walk back to main campus and pick up the on-duty phone from Coran’s apartment.

“Hey, Lance. Thanks for showing me this. I think it’s just what I needed this morning.” She turns to him and gives him a small smile. “I’ve gotta head off, but I’ll text you later, kay?”

“Sure. See you later.”

And without thinking about it, he cups a hand behind her neck and leans down and she falls into his goodbye kiss, something soft and chaste, before he lets her go. It leaves her a bit wide eyed in confusion, but Lance doesn’t seem to realise he’d even done that since he goes back to leaning on the railing and watching the sky.

Pidge is practically on autopilot walking out of the balcony and heading back to the lift. She’s not sure why he’d kissed her in the first place and why it doesn’t even seem to register in his mind as a problem. The worst part is how natural it had felt, despite the fact that they don’t _do_ mindless affection like that outside of the context of sex.

That’s something for couples.

And it’s not like Lance wants to be one.

As Pidge heads back to her dorm, she disregards her racing heart, a dull dejection overtaking the relatively nice morning they’d just had.

…

The little Kiss Incident from the morning weighs on her mind the rest of the day and even going into the next evening when Lance texts her if she wants him to come over. She tells herself that it’s a bad idea, but even so, she agrees because she’s needs to relieve some stress and she’s got a lot of free time.

But when Lance walks in, he hugs her from behind and drops soft kisses on her neck like he usually tends to do and she stiffens.

“Been thinking about you all day…” he murmurs in her ear, a smile on his lips. “How do you want it, cariño?”

He’d told her once that he likes watching her eyes when they fuck because of how expressive they are, and that’s exactly what she wants to avoid. They’re too close in a way fuck buddies shouldn’t be and she doesn’t want to see the way Lance looks at her when they’re having sex, like he never wants to be anywhere else than with her. How many girls has he looked at the same way, kissed so thoroughly, like he has all the time in the world, held as they come down from their intense orgasms the way he holds her?

Pidge isn’t jealous. She really isn’t.

But she’s being practical. A fuck buddy is just that. And lately, they’ve been skirting the boundaries a little too much. She’s not about to get toyed with by Lance so she’s doing the smart thing and choosing to back up a bit.

“I _just_ need to fuck, Lance.” Pidge pulls herself out of his hold, ignoring the slight quirk of his brow at her standoffishness. She yanks off her shirt and tugs down her shorts. “No need for the stupid, frilly bullshit. So get undressed already.”

Something flickers in his expression for a moment, but it goes away just as fast and a nasty smirk grows on his lips. “If that’s what you want, _Katie._ ”

“It is.”

“Alright.”

She rides him on the futon at her own pace, gripping the arm rest behind his head and focusing her stare on the wall the whole time. Lance barely touches her, his hands grasping her hips only to help guide her motions, but other than that, it’s completely impersonal—honestly it’s like two people having sex but not _with_ each other—and after Pidge drags herself through a swift climax, Lance pulls out and turns her on her hands and knees and imbeds himself fully in her.

He’s almost unforgiving as he sets his pace, bruising her hips as he rocks inside her, the torrid heat of his cock burning as he pounds into her, hilt deep and hard. She moans from how far he’s hitting her, fingers clawing the cushion with every thrust. The way he stretches her feels amazing, but there’s nothing soft about the way he’s fucking her. They’ve had rough sex before, but it’s never felt this way before with absolutely no emotional connection.

With no warmth whatsoever.

And she realises _this_ is fuckboy Lance, the one who doesn’t give a damn about relationships, the one who hooks up with whoever whenever just for the fun of it, because he just doesn’t care about any of his conquests like that. The one who’s perfectly content hitting and quitting with little else than a smirk on his face and a flippant apology that he’s not interested in anything more.

Back in October, she might have been satisfied with this, but despite being so full of him, she feels hollow, cold and empty, and she realises she’s not sure she wants the distance.

His lips mindlessly nip at the skin behind her shoulder blades, his pants for breath uneven, and Pidge can’t stop her loud moan when his hand comes around to rub circles on her clit. But everything feels different. Like something is missing. And she’d wanted it to be this way, but it’s not enough just to fuck and for a second, her breath hitches in her chest like she wants to puke. It feels so wrong.

Lance doesn’t let up with his smooth, powerful thrusts, hitting spots in her that make it hard for her to do anything but suck in quick and shallow breaths. Even after she careens into her explosive orgasm, he jerks into her harder and harder, the side of her futon rhythmically banging on the wall until he can’t hold off anymore and spills inside her with a broken exhale.

They both collapse, breathing hard, and she instantly misses the feel of him when he pulls out of her. Pidge writhes under his body weight, lightly elbowing him to remind him that she’s going to get crushed.

“Lance…” she pants, trying to move out from under his deadweight, “you’re heavy as fuck.”

Lance groans, but chuckles, shifting onto his side so she can squirm out. “Ah. Sorry…”

She winds up with her back against the back of the couch, facing Lance, and she makes the mistake of meeting his eyes. They search each other’s gaze for a few beats of silence, unsure what to say after all that. She can see in his eyes that he feels just as unsettled with what they’d done as she does. Lance’s expression is serious and pensive, that odd contemplative look on his face again and her stomach turns itself into knots. She feels all open and vulnerable from the way he’s looking at her and it’s like he sees right through her or something.

She knows she should turn her head when Lance leans in and claims her lips in a slow kiss, but she doesn’t and she blames her hazy and muddled mind for the reason she kisses him back, pressing herself against him as he rolls her on top of him. His body heat—his arms around her—is exactly what she’d been missing.

Their lips never separate for more than a couple seconds as he grows hard again, as he slides inside her, as she grinds down on him, gasping from each sharp snap of his hips into her. Her hands trail down over his chest and abdomen, come up to cup his face, and Lance hardly stops touching her either, hands drifting along her sides, kneading her breasts, grasping her ass to pull her down harder on him. It makes her so lightheaded and dizzy, unable to get oxygen she needs with her lips so connected to Lance’s. By the end of it, they’re panting for much needed air, wound up around each other and their limbs completely intertwined.

Somehow it feels like an unspoken apology to each other, and Pidge’s conflicted emotions make it hard to swallow past the knot in her throat.

And the feeling lasts well through her shower as she thoroughly cleans herself of Lance’s scent clinging to every surface of her skin. It feels so good being with Lance the way she has been, but they truly need a bit of distance because this can’t be healthy. It can’t be good for her to feel so fulfilled by a guy who’ll drop her and run off to the next commodity as soon as he gets bored.

“You doing anything this upcoming Friday night?” Lance asks her from near the sink.

“Uh, studying, some TV, sleep. But it’s also a game night and knowing the Arus boys, something is going to get broken.” Pidge cuts off the water and steps out, grabbing her towel and tying it around herself. Keith is usually out at events with his sugar daddy on most Fridays so she tends to go to Lance’s room before he heads out to whatever party he has on his agenda. “Or maybe I’ll find pond frogs in the common room. It’s certainly happened before…”

Lance laughs, pocketing his phone and heading back out to her room when she cuts the lights of her bathroom. “You love our antics. We make your life fun.”

“The word you’re looking for is _hell_ , Lance,” she drawls, grabbing another towel to rub at her wet hair. “You guys make my life hell. Anyway, why were you asking about Friday? Did you want to switch the time we meet up or something?”

He hesitates for just a beat too long, and Pidge stiffens, an uneasy feeling building in her stomach. His gaze is far too inviting and far too affectionate and she finds herself swallowing thickly.

“Well… yes and no.”

“…What do you mean?”

“You know my friend Hunk? He and his roommate are hosting a dinner party since he’s trying out new recipes,” Lance says slowly, choosing his words cautiously as he gauges her reaction. “Except it’s actually a couple’s dinner party, and Hunk refuses to let me try any of his stuff unless I bring a date. So I was wondering if you wanted to go. With me.”

It’s worse than she’d thought. She has no idea how to respond to him.

“Oh.” Pidge pauses in rubbing lotion on her arms, a slight grimace on her face. “Well we’re not really… uhh… you know? A couple.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I know.” He slips his hands in the pockets of his jeans, moving in front of her desk and staring daggers at her wall calendar. If she didn’t know any better, she would think he’s a little nervous. “It’s just something chill though if you want to hang out some more. You know, outside of us having sex.”

Pidge chews on her lower lip and stares at the swirly pattern of her rug. “I’m on duty this Friday. So I can’t really leave too far from the dorms.”

“True.” He turns to face her, and she hates that she knows he’s looking at her with that soft look again that makes it hard for her to say no. For some reason, she gets the sense that he’s holding his breath. “But, you know, if you feel like changing your routine for one night, you could get someone to cover for you.”

They’re not in a relationship so honestly, it doesn’t make too much sense for Pidge to put in time or effort into something like that as if they are. Especially when he’s never going to be serious about this. She can’t forget that.

“Yeah, but that’s not a good enough reason to change my routine,” she responds a bit curtly, feeling like she wants to puke again when those conflicted feelings well up in her chest. “Plus, there’s no reason to hang out with you outside of hooking up. If you need a date, you should just ask one of your old hookups.”

Lance doesn’t respond immediately and she has to fight to keep herself from wincing. Pidge knows it’d come out a little more coldly than it should for something not even that big of a deal, but she’s annoyed about this entire weekend and she can’t help but lash out. He keeps pushing the envelope, confusing her with his behaviour, and she finds that ten times worse because it’s just a game to him.

When she finally musters up some courage to glance up, the smile on Lance’s face doesn’t look right because his expression is completely closed off.

_Guarded._

“You’re right.” He nods slowly. “Maybe I should.”

“Then do it,” she snaps.

“I will.”

They have some kind of stare-off, Pidge scowling at him while Lance’s face remains completely impassive and she turns away from him, teeth grit from his blank stare.

“I have a paper to get started on, so…”

“Right. See you around.”

Lance leaves without another word, and Pidge nearly chews up the inside of her cheek, her stomach twisting in dread and remorse. She can’t shake the feeling that she’s seriously fucked up.

…

And she’s right, because she doesn’t see him the next day.

Or the next.

Or the rest of the week for that matter, and he hasn’t texted her at all which, considering how much they tend to meet up, is absolutely jarring. By Friday night, well after she’s set up the game night, she’s restless, jittery, and snapping at everyone who so much as looks in her direction.

So, _of course_ , the guys cause a mess when some of them throw bowling balls in one of the bathrooms for some reason and crack the mirror, bust up the tiles, and even break one of the urinals, leading to water spilling out and flooding the carpet of their floor in the surrounding area. She has to put in a service report for repairs and she’s so ready to rip their heads off, except Keith (bless his heart) recognises her bad mood and herds everyone away from her room.

But even having a Friday evening to herself, she still can’t get any work done because she knows right at this very second, Lance is at Hunk’s dinner party with someone else, and she can’t stop thinking that she should have said yes. The only reason she hadn’t is because she’d wanted to spite him and that’s not fair considering she’s the one who’d read into things a little too much. He’s always been friendly to her from the day they met, and he’d been sweet to think of her first over all his many girl friends.

And she’d treated him like shit.

It takes her staring at a blank page for an essay for about thirty minutes, unable to centre her thoughts to get started before she finally admits to herself that she’s anxious because she hadn’t parted on good terms with Lance and she’s scared he’s going to sleep with whoever he’d brought. Frustrated, she shuts the lid of her laptop and stands up with a huff. Pidge wanders her hall periodically, stopping by Keith and Lance’s door each time to see if she can hear anything inside that indicates Lance has returned.

(And hopefully alone).

Keith had left a while ago though, so the door is locked every time she tries. 

By three in the morning, Lance still has yet to return, and Pidge has damn near made herself crazy with frustration. She’s acting like a jealous girlfriend, and she’s not even sure she’s in friend status with Lance so she knows she’s being idiotic.

_Maybe you want to be in girlfriend status…_

She can’t even beat the thought away because she definitely has some overly territorial thoughts regarding Lance, and she knows it’s not just because she doesn’t want to share his Magic Cock™ with anyone else. And the more she thinks about it, the harder it gets to deny that maybe she feels so messed up over this because she has a strong attachment to him, even though she absolutely shouldn’t. It’s just supposed to be sex, so what the hell is she doing catching feelings for her fuck buddy?

The realisation rattles her enough that she can’t even begin to think about schoolwork.

Annoyed with herself, Pidge takes a hot shower to calm down, checks their room once more to see if he’s in, and when he’s not, heads back to her room completely dejected.

Before she goes to bed, she sends Lance one text saying _I’m sorry_.

And she hopes it’s enough before he decides he’s done with the exclusive sex thing.

Or with her.

…

Pidge wakes up groggy and cranky, and her mood gets worse when she sees that Lance still hasn’t texted her back. She directs the maintenance crew to the broken bathroom when they arrive, checks Keith and Lance’s room only to find it still locked, and then checks it again after she’s finished getting ready. Frustrated with her ridiculous preoccupation with this mess, she checks with Rizavi to see if she’s got anything going on that Pidge can join to take her mind off things.

Pidge ends up going with Rizavi to the South Asian Association’s early morning yoga in the park event. And it’s an amazing experience honestly. Completely calming and in the gentle warmth of the morning, Pidge actually feels a lot better. A half hour into the event she starts cracking jokes with Rizavi again. Pidge isn’t used to some of the more complicated manoeuvres, but she’s flexible enough to get the basic positioning and she’s learning and by the end of the mini class, she feels super energetic. Rizavi is absolutely amazing at it so when a handful of the more experienced people do some free yoga, she records Rizavi so she can watch her best friend any time she wants.

After the event ends, they squat by the little duck pond to feed the ducks hunks of bread, but quickly get tired of the frogs flying out of the pond and landing on their laps. Pidge almost falls in when she’s startled by one frog splatting on her face and Rizavi laughs so hard she almost throws up. They walk down another block to a pancake place for brunch and share the special, an ultra-high stack of maple pecan pancakes with a beast of a veggie omelette. It comes with bacon and sausage too, which Rizavi can’t eat, so Pidge breaks the rules a little and uses her RA budget to buy her hash browns. And then to top it all off, they order a slice of Dutch apple pie with ice cream to share.

Pidge honestly doesn’t know what she’d done to deserve a friend like Rizavi because even without telling her what had happened, Rizavi senses that there’s something off and doesn’t bring Lance up at all. Instead she talks about the class sections they should both register for when their time ticket opens up. It’s pretty much guaranteed that they’re going to take the same classes again in the fall unless their minor requirements cause a conflict. 

It’s a great afternoon thanks to Rizavi, and Pidge feels a lot better when she finally gets back to her room. She doesn’t check to see if Lance is back in his room yet, and she hasn’t stressed about checking her phone for a response in hours.

But when she walks in, a little note on the floor catches her eye.

_my room._

It’s Lance’s chicken scratch handwriting and just like that, all her anxious thoughts come rushing back. She’s a little terrified of what to expect from him and checks her phone, thinking maybe he’d texted her, but still nothing. The note just seems so ominous and she fries her brain debating whether to go over to his room at all, but she’s kind of scared. Why else would he put such an unemotional note under her room door like that except for wanting to talk about how they need to break up?

(Not that they’re together…)

Or even worse: to tell her he’d hooked up with his date last night.

Pidge gathers her courage though, knowing if she doesn’t get on with this she’ll never get it out of her mind and she’ll remain distracted.

She heads to his room on pins and needles, already preparing what to say to save face in case he does end this arrangement with her. But when she walks in Lance’s room, he’s lounging on the edge of his bed, staring at something on his laptop screen while rubbing the scruff on his chin. The TV is on some channel showing a documentary of the migration of birds. Pidge doesn’t at all expect him to look up and smile at her, but he does, and there’s not even a hint of any anger in his expression. He looks pretty happy to see her, and Pidge stands there blinking at him in confusion in her shock.

“Tried to find you this morning, but you were out.”

“I was with Riz…” She licks her lips a little anxiously. “How— uh, how was the dinner party?”

Lance eyes her curiously, his head tilted a bit. “Worth it for the food. We played poker afterwards too so that was fun.”

“I bet.” She scuffs the toe of her slipper on the floor, cheeks rouging from his unwavering gaze. “Couldn’t help but notice you were gone all evening.”

“Yeah. But that’s because the wine was strong as fuck and I ended up passing out on his couch. Hunk also made homemade cannoli.” He sets his laptop aside so he can hold up the Tupperware housing the confection. “I brought some back so you could try it. He said he wants a full in-depth review from you to see if his taste authentically Italian enough.”

“Yeah. I can do that.” She doesn’t dare ask if Lance was sleeping alone on the couch or not. “Sounds like it was a great evening. Did your date have fun too?”

And Lance sighs and scratches the back of his head.

“Look—”

“Lance, I’m sorry for what I said,” she blurts out, staring at the ground and kind of feeling like she wants to cry. “So if you hooked up with your date, you can tell me. I don’t blame you.”

“Listen.” Lance reaches out to take her wrist and tugs her forward so she’s standing between his legs. When she lifts her gaze to his, the open warmth makes her blush. “I didn’t do anything with her last night. We hung out and she left after a couple hands of poker. Would I have rather ended the night getting my dick sucked? Absolutely. But only if it was you.”

The tension coiled in her stomach relaxes, all her fears dissipating in one fell swoop. Pidge’s lips pull up in a small smile, though she folds them in to keep from laughing.

“I mean, we’ve already christened Hunk’s bathroom. Kitchen would have been next.” He runs his hands up and down her arms, a pleased smirk on his lips as if proud of himself for making her laugh when she can’t contain her snort of laughter. “Katie, I gave you my word I wouldn’t sleep with anyone else, and I don’t intend to break it. I would never want to hurt you like that.”

Her heart feels like it’s going to burst out of her chest. “Lance…”

And she wants to tell him this is starting to be too much for her. That he’s on her mind too much for this fuck buddy situation to be good for either of them anymore. That every time they have sex, she’s starting to feel like she’s slowly approaching a blazing inferno and she’s scared she’s about to get hurt.

But she knows the second she even mentions her feelings, whatever this is is definitely going to end.

And the thought of not having this with Lance seems worse.

“Lance… can we, err… can we cuddle?”

He looks surprised for a second, but scoots back so his back is against the wall and pats the spot beside him. She clambers up on the bed and settles beside him, resting her head on the crook of his neck and shoulder and tucking herself under the arm he drapes around her shoulders. Lance is entirely too comfortable and she snuggles into his warmth, loosely grasping his shirt in her hand. She’s not sure if she imagines the soft brush of his lips on her forehead.

“You need a shower,” he mutters, his nose wrinkling a bit when he catches a whiff of her hair. “It’s like… a mix of sweat, grass, and… pond water?”

“Sorry. I did yoga all morning.”

“Did you now?” He waggles his eyebrows. “You feel like practicing downward dog?”

Pidge laughs, slapping his chest, and when Lance laughs too, it makes something warm spread through her.

It’s not just an attachment to him. Pidge just wants to be with him, like real lovers, and though it hurts her heart that he won’t ever feel that way, that he won’t ever want to be serious with her, this is okay for now. At least she can be close to him. And at least he’s okay with being close to her.

She can live with that for now.

Pidge tilts her head up, smiling against his mouth when he leans down and kisses her sweetly, his fingers on her chin to gently hold her in place.

She’s in so much trouble.

…

“So… did you enjoy sleeping with Lance?”

Pidge is taken completely off guard by Keith’s sudden declaration and chokes on her spit, coughing raggedly and almost dropping his handheld game system. The momentary loss of control leads her to almost losing the round she’s trying to beat for him and she manages to pause it before any more damage happens.

Keith, the little shit, continues to paint her toenails nonchalantly with barely a shift in his expression. “Stop moving around or I’ll fuck up your toes.”

“What did you just say?” she croaks when her coughing fit finally stops.

“You slept with Lance.” Keith repeats in the same dry tone. “Don’t try to deny it. I have damning evidence.”

Pidge groans, tilting her head back against Keith’s headboard and closing her eyes for a second. “Did Lance tell you? I’ll kick his ass!”

“No, but last week someone left a pair of Hello Kitty wearing brass knuckles panties in our room and I got you those undies as a joke gift last year. The next day I saw you limping in the dining hall and you were really flushed so it wasn’t hard to put two and two together. And I mean, I’m like ninety-nine percent positive you’re not sleeping with me so by process of elimination that leaves…”

Pidge rubs her face with both hands. “Fuck.”

A ghost of a smirk forms on Keith’s lips. “I knew this was going to happen eventually. Told you you wanted him to fill you like a—”

“Stop it!” She resumes the game, furiously punching buttons with her thumb to keep herself occupied, even though her face is completely red. “It just happened, okay? We ended up fucking on accident and then I kind of stopped trying to fight it.”

“How long has this been going on?”

“Since October.”

Keith’s hand slips and she feels the brush go over her skin when he finally reacts, his brows high on his forehead when he lifts his gaze to hers.

“I thought you were talking about a week or two. That’s whole _months_. Lance never sleeps with the same girl more than three times in a row. Are you guys together or something?”

“No,” she mutters, doling out a perfect combo that kills off one of the three big bads currently attacking her character. Though she tries not to let any bitterness slip in her tone, she can tell it does by the way Keith’s gaze turns thoughtful. “It’s just sex.”

“You like him.”

She nods. “It was bound to happen eventually. We spend a lot of time together in ways we shouldn’t for being just fuck buddies.”

His eyes narrow suspiciously. “You guys haven’t fucked on my bed or anything have you?”

“We used your sleeping pillow as a pillow under my hips,” she drawls, making sure he can’t tell whether she’s being serious or not. “Lance’s splooge got all over it.”

“Degenerates.”

“Look who’s talking! You were masturbating over a nude model _during_ one of your classes because he had a big ass ding dong!” Pidge nudges him with her free foot and Keith’s annoyed little growl makes her smile. “How come you’re so chill about me keeping this secret?”

“Because I still haven’t wrapped my mind around it in full. I can guarantee you I’ll freak out by midnight. Although… I guess I’m not really surprised about you two to be honest. I can see it.” He shrugs, going back to painting her toenails the dusky mahogany. “You guys would look good together. Your height difference is really cute. I think your personalities are compatible as a couple too plus Aries and Leos are supposedly near perfect matches.”

She stares at the screen as she narrowly avoids getting chomped onto by something her opponent summoned. The dejection in the pit of her stomach makes it hard to focus on the game though.

“Keith… we’re never going to be a couple. Lance has made it clear he’s not interested in that. He doesn’t want a real relationship.”

“Do you?”

“What?”

“Do you want a real relationship with him? Tell me the truth.”

“…yeah. I do. But it would never work out. He doesn’t want to be tied down. And I don’t know how much longer I can do this casual thing knowing that. It gets worse every time we have sex. I actually _like_ him calling me babe. And last night he called me beautiful while I was riding him and I _swooned_ Keith. It was unbelievable.” She groans and runs a hand through her hair as she watches her special attack move power up and play out when it connects. “I didn’t want to admit it to myself but there’s no way around it anymore. And it’s starting to piss me off. Urgh… why did I decide to get involved with Lance McClain of all people? He’s way too charismatic for his own good.”

“Pidge.” Keith gives her a poignant look as he caps the nail polish bottle. “If it’s hurting you, why don’t you call it off?”

“Because—pathetically enough—there’s a part of me hoping that he’ll change his mind and want to be with me too.”

“…Lance isn’t that kind of guy, Pidge. You’ll be waiting a long time.”

“I know… he’s told me before that he doesn’t want serious, but I just— the way we are sometimes… it just feels like something’s different between us.”

“Hn.” Keith grunts noncommittally, though from the displeased look on his face, she can tell he doesn’t particularly agree with her. “I need you to be careful. Lance doesn’t purposely act like a dick, but I’ve been friends with him for three years. He’s careless with people’s feelings sometimes because he only does whatever the hell he wants. And I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I won’t, Keith. Spring break is in a few weeks and I’m sure he’ll get rid of me by then so he can hook up with people on the beach.”

Only it’s something she doesn’t want to happen at all, and based on the way Keith is eyeing her, he knows.

“Anyway, I beat the level for you.” She hands him his handheld and Keith takes it with an impressed look. “You’re welcome.”

“Cool. I’m done too, by the way.”

While he watches the cutscene, she observes her toes and is met by a mess of brownish-red unevenly splotched over her toenails and pasted on her skin too. It’s goopy in some parts, thin in others, some not covering the toenail completely while other toes are nearly red as if she’d submerged a toe in the polish.

“Keith, what the fuck?”

“You wouldn’t stop moving…” he deadpans. “What can ya do?”

Pidge grabs one of the pillows and tackles him, smothering his face with it while he laughs.

…

It’s not easy to contain her feelings for Lance, and the more she tries to hide it, the more she feels it’s leaking out everywhere. There are times she suddenly gets a burst of courage to just blurt it out and tell him she likes him, but she always loses her nerve. The repercussions are huge and she’s not sure she’s ready for possible fallout if Lance decides he wants nothing to do with her.

Pidge hates pining over him like this, but Lance makes her feel breathless, like she’s run a marathon. She’s never felt this way towards anyone before in her life.

As if right on cue, Lance comes into her room and shuts the door fast, looking a little wild in the eyes and definitely trying to hold back laughter. She can hear a bunch of guys shouting in the hallway and already, her calm Monday evening mood dampens. She’d been hoping to finish up reading the rest of the articles for her science and human value philosophy course and writing all her response pieces to turn in early, but if she has to file another stupid incident report, she’s going to scream. It’ll be the fourth one in two days!

“What the hell is going on? Why are there a bunch of shouting guys outside?”

“Someone turned all of Griffin’s white clothes pink in the laundry and he’s on a rampage out for blood.” Lance strides towards her bed, slipping off his shoes before he hops up on her bed and stretches out beside her legs. “He’s going around the dorm threatening people with a lacrosse stick so there’s this dorm-wide game of hide and seek going on. It’s Armageddon. I don’t have an alibi, and I’d rather not deal with him right now.”

She pinches the bridge of her nose, knowing she’ll end up having to deal with it sooner or later. “Did you do it?”

“Nah. I was taking a nap in my room, but Keith wasn’t there to support my story. But I’d rather hide out here with you for a while anyway.”

Lance gives her a cute cheeky smile as he looks up at her, his eyes dancing and she hates how he knows exactly what to say or do to make her lose focus. Honestly, she wonders if he can read her that easily, does he know how she feels about him?

“I’m busy.”

“Just keep doing whatever you’re doing. I won’t disturb you. Well… unless you want me to.”

“Moron,” she scoffs under her breath, trying to go back to the printed handouts she’d been heavily highlighting and marking with questions and talking points for the next class. But she reads the same line over twice when Lance shifts and rests his head on her lap. “Lance—”

“Just pretend I’m not here.”

“Easier said than done…”

He’s a warm, solid presence on her body, and his face is a little too close to her crotch which makes her lose her concentration way too easily.

But then again, Lance really isn’t doing anything to disturb her. He’s just on his phone chilling and she can’t help but think if they were in a relationship him being draped all over her wouldn’t be so abnormal. But they’re not. So why is he always so touchy-feely with her? He’s acting super domestic like they’re a couple when they aren’t and when he doesn’t even want a relationship and it’s confusing her.

But she relishes moments like these because she gets to know him even better, as if they were dating. They pretty much have the same hobbies in their downtime. He makes her laugh and she actually looks forward to his company and the things she’d thought annoyed her most about him are things she’s started to appreciate (like that stupid shell necklace that she finds sexy on him now). Lance, in all his outwardly appearing flippancy, is actually a lot more attentive and perceptive than she’d originally assumed, so it’s not such a far off jump to assume that he’d actually make a pretty considerate and generous boyfriend.

She stares at him with longing for so long that she fails to realise he’d put his phone down and that blue eyes are also staring up at her. Pidge snaps out of it too late, holding her papers up close to her face and trying not to let her blush overtake her face.

“Katie.”

She runs a hand through her tangled hair, heart pounding because she can feel the heat in his gaze.

“ _Katie_ ~”

Pidge tries to ignore him, but his hand trails along the inside of her thigh and goosebumps rise up on her skin.

“If you need it, just tell me. I’ll take care of you.”

“I’m trying to do my homework,” she protests weakly, and she can see Lance’s smirk out of the corner of her eyes.

“No you’re not.”

He takes the handout out of her hands and tosses it over the side of her bed. Pidge’s face twists in indignant objection, but Lance pulls her by her legs until she’s lying flat on the mattress and crawls on top of her with a dangerous gleam in his eyes.

She cups his jaw, torn between wanting him to work his magic on her and her plans to get ahead in her course. “Lance, I have a busy schedule today…”

“I’ll stop if you want me to.”

She hates him so much.

When their lips meet, it feels like all her worries don’t matter anymore, and it still surprises her how much Lance has burrowed under her skin, crawling his way into her heart to the point she can’t even remember how much she used to dislike him. Pidge feels dazed as he tugs the zipper of her shorts down, taking it along with her panties down her legs. She helps peel his shirt off and then pulls him back down to reclaim his mouth when he hovers over her. Pidge lets out a shuddering exhale in need when he slides his hand between her thighs and cups her.

It’s almost embarrassing how fast she gets riled up, how fast she gets wet with anticipation and he hasn’t even really touched her yet. Her body is so ready for it, likely had been ready the moment he’d come into her room.

He nips at her neck, smiling when she moans when he drags his finger over her entrance, just barely dipping in. “What do you want me to do, _hermosa_?”

She makes an unintelligible noise when his finger skims over her clit. He rucks up her shirt and bra with his other hand, leaning down and dragging small kisses along her chest. Pidge squirms, sighing in pleasure as he licks her and wraps his mouth around her to suck on her aching breast. He nips her and tugs her nipple with his teeth while his hand kneads the other one, cupping and squeezing her. Heat crawls down her abdomen when he switches, taking his sweet time and all the while teasing her frustratingly slow along her folds.

“Lance…” she mewls.

A dark chuckle leaves him. “Hmmm?”

“Need you— your mouth. God, _please_.”

Lance moves down her body, kissing a languid path until he reaches her thighs, and even then he takes his sweet time teasing the skin near where she’s aching most for fulfilment. He presses light kisses on her hip bone, then on her pubic bone, then right under her navel, then along her inner thighs while his fingers stroke her with just enough pressure to make her breath hitch, but not enough that it leaves her wanting more. When his mouth finally trails to the junction between her legs, Pidge writhes, her breathing heavy when he grips her hips and dives right in, licking a long stripe and sucking on her folds. He knows just how to get her off, aggressive in his approach, his mouth sucking around the hood of her clit. She moans, her back arching off the mattress as she claws a hand into Lance’s hair, the other one fisting the covers.

“A-ah! _Oh my God_ …”

The coil between her legs tightens fast and when he flattens and drags his tongue right on her clit, Pidge whimpers as she comes _hard_. He leans back for a second to let her cool down a bit, watching her unravel with that smug sense of satisfaction dancing in his eyes. Pidge tugs on his hair to let him know she’s okay, and he leans back in to finish the job.

She’s still quivering when he puts his mouth back on her, kissing and licking her a little more softly this time, taking his time to help her come again. The heat from the fire burning between her legs slowly builds again from his steady motions. He alternates between soft circles with his tongue and sharp probing along her folds, and Pidge becomes an utter mess when he presses two fingers inside her and rubs them fast along her walls. He drags his finger along the perfect place and Pidge’s toes curl, her vision swimming as the sheer bliss pushes her over the edge again.

He doesn’t stop curling his fingers inside her this time, pressing and rubbing on the same spot that has her shaking, high pitched moans and whimpers leaving her mouth at faster intervals. His nips her with his teeth, sucking on her harder than before and Pidge gasps at the sharp rise of pleasure through her body. Lance moans against her and the vibrations coupled with the fantastic feeling of his mouth scorch her, the fire between her legs ratcheting up to an unbelievable intensity. Before she knows it, she crests sharply into an overwhelming climax again, everything clenching hard as it rips through her.

“ _Lance_ …” she gasps brokenly, bucking her hips closer to his mouth, desperate for the elusive fourth orgasm she can never seem to get by herself. “Please… _holy shit_ — don’t stop…”

“I got you, baby.” His eyes are dark, lips plush and wet with her slick and something about the sight is so sexy she moans again. “Hold on.”

He buries his face right in there, going at it hard, more intense, every pass of his tongue feeling like lightning stinging her, her whole body clenched so tight she can’t catch her breath. It hurts a little, and she feels like she can’t take it anymore, like she’s about to shatter into a million pieces, but she’s too close to another perfect orgasm and she doesn’t want it to end now. The more he touches her, strokes inside her, the harder it is for her to breathe, and she tilts her head back, her mouth opening and closing though she can’t seem to form any sounds at all. Her heart stutters in her chest, and Pidge falls into a daze, drowning in pleasure she’s never once experienced in her life.

“Fuck Katie… you are unbelievably sexy…”

His relentless pursuit coaxes her towards another earthshattering release. It rises and falls several times, each rise closer to the peak she _needs_ and she wrenches her eyes shut, fighting for breath and concentrating on the feel of his hot tongue dragging over her sensitive bundle of nerves. He pushes another finger in her as he pumps, his other hand palming her breast and pinching her nipple. Pidge bites her lower lip, tears springing to her eyes when Lance sucks hard on her clit and the intense pressure crescendos sharply and she hurdles towards a dizzying release.

A shock of electricity goes through her body, sharp ripples of something so devastating hitting her with no warning. She has to smother her face with a pillow to stifle her scream of ecstasy when she’s seized by a rush of a sensation so intense her vision goes black for a moment. She’s completely spent, slumping back on the bed just on the edge of pain, spasms dancing through her body, completely satisfied and a blissful smile on her face as she stares unfocused at the ceiling. Her whole body is on fire, prickling, shivers running through her limbs and leaving her unable to control them. It’s beyond anything she has ever felt before and she can’t seem to bring herself back to reality after that blinding climax.

Lance laps at her gently while she struggles to suck in lungfuls of air and when her tremors from the aftershocks finally subside, he lifts himself up, his eyes hazy with lust as he licks his lips.

“Katie,” Lance crawls back up to her, nestling himself between her hips, heavy desire in his gaze. “I need to be inside you.”

The hoarse, gravelly way he says her name makes her whimper. She pulls his face to hers in a sloppy, tongue-filled kiss as Lance tugs down his pants and boxers, hovering over her and hiking her legs on his waist. He’s unbelievably hard, his hot erection bumping her entrance and making heat dance up her spine.

Pidge is far too boneless to move, only able to let out a soft moan when he pins her wrists on the mattress beside her head and drives into her in one smooth motion. Lance thrusts in her fast, frantic, sweat dampening his bangs, a heady look of concentration in his eyes. His hot, uneven pants and low groans on her neck make her breath catch, dulled ripples of pleasure coursing through her from the way he feels dragging along her walls. She loves the way his body feels on her, trembling from his quickly approaching climax, the effort he’s exerting to come, the sweat making his abdomen slide against hers with each sensuous roll of his hips. Being trapped under his body, so full of him throws her in a daze.

It doesn’t take long before the room is filled with their broken inhales and exhales and desperate panting and low moans, the slap of his balls hitting her skin, the wet squelching each time he pulls out and rocks back in. Every time he drives back in, he goes harder. Her bed bangs against the wall and she’s aware that they’re being a little too loud, but in the moment, she doesn’t care when he feels this good.

Lance pulls out, taking her legs and lifting them up on his shoulders before he slides back into her, shifting his angle and making her gasp with need. He grips the covers to anchor himself, snapping his hips sharply, slamming deep inside her and making her moan. She’s practically folded in half, but she grasps Lance’s sides, sinking her nails into his skin with a strained moan, enjoying the bliss of his thick, heavy cock inside her and his low animalistic growls as he strives to come. He’s really close, she can tell. His rutting is disjointed now, his pants coming out more unevenly.

Pidge squeezes him inside her the way she knows will get him to come and it has its desired effect because Lance loses his rhythm entirely. It doesn’t take many more thrusts for his jarring climax to crash into him. He spills inside her, his strangled groan long and low, eyes closed as he abandons himself to his pleasure. Lance looks like he’s reached nirvana and it makes her smile that he can find the same kind of satisfaction with her that she finds with him. Her legs are shaking from being pretzeled when he pulls out and puts them back down, and he collapses beside her, his ragged breathing harsh.

Turning over, she tucks herself into his chest, still dazed and lightheaded from how insane and absolutely perfect that had been. Lance drops a gentle kiss on her forehead and slings an arm over her waist to pull her even closer.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to walk the rest of the day…” Pidge murmurs, tangling her legs in his as she presses an ear to his chest to settle into a lazy afterglow. “Fuck… and I have a staff meeting at Coran’s in the evening.”

She feels totally sated though and honestly, if she didn’t have prior commitments, she’d be perfectly content spending the rest of the day next to him like this, just relishing in each other’s company.

Lance chuckles, lazily stroking her lower back. “Pleased to be of service, _belleza_.”

She whines in frustration when he peels himself away from her and hops down from her bed. For a brief moment of panic, she thinks he’s about to leave. But Lance heads to her mini fridge and pulls out a bottle of water. Then he gets back on her bed, sliding up so he’s lying beside her again and offers her the water.

“Here, drink up. You blacked out on me for like ten seconds.”

She takes it gratefully, shifting onto one elbow to down a few gulps. “Don’t even try to pretend you’re not proud of yourself. You have smug written all over your face.”

He laughs, thanking her when she hands him the water to drink a bit.

A quiet moment passes between them, settling comfortably over them as they continue to hand off the water to each other until they finish it off. Pidge can’t speak for him, but her body is still electrified from the intense sex and she’s pretty sure he’s feeling the same way. The way his eyes drift over her chest when she pulls off her shirt and throws her bra aside and then further down her body seems to show that.

Outside her room, Pidge can still hear the sounds of shouting guys. Something further down the hall crashes and she hears glass shattering and sighs, resigning herself to the fact that she’ll have to fill out another report. If she lived in any other dorm, this many under her name would have definitely gotten her fired by the residential offices for being an irresponsible RA, so she’s glad everyone knows Arus’s reputation enough for her to be exempt from investigation.

“Hey… do you want to go to dinner with me on Saturday night?” Lance suddenly asks, drawing her out of her thoughts. “Just us two.”

It’s a bad idea.

But she’d missed her chance last time over her own personal drama. She’s not going to miss it again.

“I… okay…” She nods, her cheeks flushing hot when his grin lights up his entire face. “It’ll have to be late because I need to study until eight, but yeah. Dinner sounds nice.”

And he leans up, curling his hands into her hair to drag her down into the sweetest kiss she’s ever experienced in her life. Butterflies feel like they’re erupting all over her stomach, her nerves are all tingly, and she can’t stop her wildly beating heart. She hums into his mouth, bracing her hand beside him and leaning down further to mould her mouth more fully to his.

And she decides that at some point, she needs to tell him where she’s at because this isn’t going to work if they keep skirting the edges of something more while they remain rooted in the fuck buddy designation. She’s going to implode if she doesn’t tell him what she feels for him.

She’s falling for him.

 _Hard_.

And she’s terrified he’ll reject her, but she doesn’t know his intentions with the date and he needs to know that if they do this, she’s not going to settle for being just a fuck buddy any longer. If they do this, she’s going to want more.

…

At least, that’s what she plans, but it’s easier said than done.

After spending several more days turning circles in her mind about when would be the best time, she almost gives up when she can never seem to find it. The closer Saturday approaches, the more nervous she grows until she starts to lose her nerve entirely. Rizavi gives her multiple pep talks and by Friday, Pidge thinks she’s ready.

In any case, at this point, she can deal with anxiety more than she can deal with her feelings clawing up her insides every time Lance smiles at her.

(Hell, any time he even looks in her direction, period).

She’s in the process of formulating her speech to Lance as she leaves the laundry room when she sees the back of Keith’s mullet near the vending machines where he’s in the midst of a hushed conversation with someone. She almost calls out to him, excited to tell him her plan, when she catches sight of his face and he’s scowling. His arms are crossed in front of his chest and she knows him well enough to know that whoever it is has seriously annoyed him.

She leans over carefully and sees Lance looking equally disgruntled. A heavy weight settles in the pit of her stomach and something tells her not to reveal herself yet.

“Look, I’m not trying to be in your business—you can fuck whoever you want—but Pidge is one of my best friends,” Keith growls. Pidge’s eyes widen, her heart thundering in her chest when she realises they’re discussing her. “Lance, I think she’s actually falling for you.”

Even more shocking is when Lance’s expression hardly shifts from the revelation.

“…I know.”

And her brows raise, a subtle fear settling in her mind.

“What do you mean _you know_?” Keith hisses brusquely, a brow raised in vexation. “If you’re toying with her, you need to stop fucking around. I know how flaky you are sometimes. She’s not a game or a challenge. If you hurt her, I’m really going to kick your ass.”

Lance sighs, running a hand through his hair. “I’m not fucking her just because she’s a challenge, Keith. Yeah, it started that way, but I like spending time with her.”

“Then you either need to take her feelings seriously or just break it off, because I know how she is. She’s really attached to you, Lance. And if you give her mixed messages or string her along, you’ll hurt her. And like I’ve threatened a thousand times—”

“You’ll kick my ass, yeah.” He rolls his eyes, though his lips pull up in a wry smile. “I get it, Keith.”

“As long as you understand.”

“You’re right, you know?” Lance lets out a long breath as he leans back against the wall in the little alcove. “I do need to make things more clear to her. We can’t keep going on like this.”

An ice cold chill hits her body as her eyes sting in the back. Blood buzzes in her ears, so loud she can hear her own breathing. She doesn’t even know how to react at first. Part of her wants to cry, but most of her is boiling with anger, furious and hurt and embarrassed that she’d actually _stupidly_ deluded herself into thinking it would be a good idea to tell Lance how she feels about him.

Lance _wants_ to break things off with her.

He’s been playing her all along.

She’d been right the first time when she’d determined him incapable of being serious about her. All along she’d been right and she’d let him get in her head and cloud her judgement. She should have just let them drift apart after the dinner party fiasco.

Pidge feels so unbelievably stupid for falling for the ruse of a fuckboy, and before she can stop herself, she stalks around the corner into the vending area, glaring daggers at Lance. She’ll be damned if she gives this womanising piece of shit the chance to hurt her any more than his callous words already have.

“Next time you two dumbfucks want to talk about something private, make sure it’s in a _private_ location,” she spits out.

Both Lance and Keith are a little slow on the uptake, but when they both realise she’s there, their faces contort in slight shock. Keith opens his mouth to speak, but she beats him to the punch.

“I heard all of that, so don’t bother with the stupid excuses. Lance, I want out of our arrangement. You’ve served your purpose and I’m bored now,” Pidge drawls caustically before turning her glare on Keith. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Lance stiffen, his brows high on his forehead in surprise. “And _you_. Stop spreading falsities. I don’t have feelings for Lance. He’s just good stress relief. And that’s all he ever was. There’s nothing _to_ break off because there was nothing there to begin with.”

“Pidge, _what_?” Keith frowns in confusion. “That’s not what you—”

“I’m serious, Keith,” Pidge snaps, jabbing him harshly in the shoulder as her voice breaks. “You’re wrong so _shut the fuck up_. Why the hell would I fall for a guy who’s only good for a quick fuck when I need a distraction from school?”

Lance straightens at that, his eyes narrowing and teeth grit furiously.

“Wow… you know, I’ve always wondered if that’s all you ever saw me as. Guess that clears things up for me.”

Keith scowls at her with worried eyes. “Pidge, what the hell?”

She ignores him entirely, her gaze trained on Lance. “That’s rich coming from you. You’ve got all these other little fuck buddies you can run back to, so what the hell do you care how I feel about you anyway?”

“Are you kidding me?” He laughs incredulously, looking at her like he cannot believe she’d actually said that to him. “After all the time we’ve spent together? How close we’ve gotten? You think I wouldn’t care about what you think about me?”

“Who are _you_ kidding? We were never friends, Lance. We were never anything _but_ fuck buddies, and you’re a lot dumber than I thought if you thought otherwise.” She crosses her arms in front of her chest, a derisive sneer on her lips as she looks her nose down on him. “I mean, why would we be? I can’t be serious about someone like you.”

Even Keith recoils at that, a look of horror on his face as he stares between them. A hurt gleam flashes through Lance’s eyes before his expression grows guarded and his gaze goes blank. And it makes her _furious_. What right does he have to act hurt when he’s the one who was scheming behind her back to end things with her?

 _He_ was toying with _her_ the whole time, purposely treating her as one would a girlfriend while using her for sex and companionship.

If anyone has the right to be mad, it’s Pidge and only Pidge.

“Someone like me, huh?” he scoffs, licking his lips. “Enlighten me.”

“A nasty fuckboy who I’m pretty sure has had his dick in half the school. Makes me sick that I even let you fuck me, to be honest.”

“ _Let me_?” He lets out a short, belittling bark of laughter, a taunting smirk on his lips. “You are so full of shit. Don’t try to act like you weren’t an active participant. You were fully engaged with this. _All in_. And you’re the one who wanted to change this thing we had in the first place.”

“What are you talking about?”

“ _Lance, I’m on birth control now so let’s do this without a condom. I’m not going to sleep with anyone else anymore_.” He growls. “Ring a bell?”

“Who the hell cares about that?!”

“I did! How the fuck else was I supposed to interpret that, huh?”

“It was _convenient_. I’d have done it if it was _anyone_ and believe you me, I’m disgusted in myself for even having condomless sex with some dumb guy so far below my standards. But I’m sorry that I gave you the impression that you were anything more than another task to complete on my schedule. _Thank you for your services, Lance_. I truly appreciate it, but I will no longer be needing them.”

And she regrets it as soon as it leaves her mouth.

It’s a low blow, and she knows it is, considering when Lance had joked about his “services”, he’d meant it in a funny way. It’d been a cute little thing between them because of how demanding she’d been when they had sex and to use their inside joke in such an insidious way leaves a sour taste in her mouth.

They’re all quiet, Keith looking on in silent horror and Lance’s expression oddly heartbroken as he gives her a dull stare. She swallows hard, her eyes going wide in remorse.

What the hell is she doing?

She wants to take it back. She wants to take it back and start this conversation over, because her anger has melted away swiftly into a gut-wrenching pain in her chest, and she can’t take that look on Lance’s normally cheerful face, but she’s said too much awful shit.

And she knows she has when a cold smirk appears on Lance’s face, his eyes bright.

“Lance… I—”

“My bad for not meeting your perfect standards, _princesa_.” Lance starts to laugh, something cruel and hateful, and she can’t swallow around the frog in her throat. The way he says that is an insult, not at all like the affectionate way he’d murmured sweet nothings in her ear in Spanish while they’d been cuddled against each other. “You know what? I don’t care anymore. You’re not even worth it. Nothing special about you except your incessant need to act like a frigid bitch for no reason.”

It feels like a slap in the face and to her horror, her vision blurs with tears as she stares at him. And the fact that Lance looks so unbothered, had said that so easily, makes her wonder if he’s been thinking it all along. This is her fault—she’d brought it to this point by confronting him that way—but it still stings something awful.

She’d known it. She’d known she wasn’t special. She’d known there was no difference between her and all his other fuck buddies, but hearing it out loud after worrying about it for so many months…

Pidge glowers at the ground, letting out a deep, shuddering breath, though she can hear her blood roaring in her ears and her tears are threatening to run down her cheeks.

“Glad we cleared things up then.”

Her voice wavers at the end of her statement, but she doesn’t dare look up. No way is she letting Lance see any of her tears. He doesn’t deserve them.

“Yeah. Glad we did.”

And Pidge turns on her heel and head held high, she walks away, heading into the stairwell. Keith calls out her name, likely an attempt to salvage whatever remains of the dregs of her relationship—fuck buddy _thing_ , her mind vehemently corrects—with Lance, but she doesn’t stop until she’s back in her room, the door locked, her back pressed against it. She stares at the wall, dragging a hand through her hair, inhaling and exhaling slowly and fighting her urge to cry.

And that’s that.

…

Her bad mood and that insistent pain in her chest lasts well into the next week, so Pidge delves deep into her work, putting in far more effort than normal for midterms, hardly sleeping and staying up way later than she normally does to keep her mind occupied until her mind forcibly shuts off and makes her sleep.

The extra hours she’d had free to spend with Lance, she fills with reading supplementary articles attached to every topic she’s studying, writing random essays on the scientific journal articles she reads, and even reading chapters of her textbooks that they aren’t even going to cover in her classes. She gets started on her end of term hardware architecture project. She reads through all of the philosophy articles and papers, and finishes a fifteen page research essay when it’s not even due until the end of May. She reads through all the chapters on algorithms and models of computation and because of that is able to finish all the remaining homework problems for her analysis of algorithms mathematics course.

She’s so invested in her work that by the end of the week, she’s completely burned out, her energy at an all-time low and heavy bags under her eyes.

Despite that, she still passes all her midterms with extraordinary colours and continues her rabid work looking for outside material to focus on as well. Ryner scores her an interview with one of her work colleagues for a project he’ll be working on in the summer and Pidge nails it and gets the summer internship immediately. So when she’s not working on school stuff, she plans well ahead for the summer, informing Coran she intends to stay so he can schedule her as a Summer RA and registering for two philosophy courses to get her minor requirements out of the way. With all of the work she has to put in, she has absolutely no time to think and that’s the way she wants it.

She’s deflecting, she knows. But it keeps her mind off of Lance and if this is the only way to do it, so be it. Keith and Rizavi don’t like it though and frequently come to her room to check on her, often bringing her peanut butter cups and gummi bears, which she throws out whenever they leave. Pidge wishes they’d leave her be to get over things in her own way, but the more she tells them she’s fine, the more they show up.

Rizavi sighs from her perch on Pidge’s bed. “Pidge, distracting yourself from your pain is not healthy. If you gotta grieve, _grieve_.”

“I’m fine, Riz. No issues on my end.” She gives her a tightlipped smile as she rubs at her tired, itchy eyes under the wire of her glasses. “And why would I grieve over some asshole womaniser who saw me as a game to play?”

She can see Keith and Rizavi glancing at each other uncertainly out of the corner of her eye, but she ignores them both.

“Pidge, I’m sorry…” Keith tries this time and she clenches her jaw, eyes narrowing at her screen. This is the ten bajillionth time he’s apologised and if she has to hear it one more time, she’s going to choke him. She knows how guilty he feels, but she honestly doesn’t blame him at all. “I’ve been around Lance for three years, and he’s unintentionally hurt some girls in the past so I wanted to make sure he wouldn’t hurt you. But he’s been pretty off lately. Kind of mopey. Didn’t go out at all this past weekend. I tried to ask him what exactly he feels for you, but he refuses to talk about you at all.”

“ _So_?” she responds tartly. “It’s just his bruised ego that he couldn’t do to me what he’s probably done to other girls. Must be hard having a taste of his own medicine.”

“But that’s not how you feel at all, Pidge…” Rizavi pipes up quietly, and once again, Pidge regrets having let them both in on what was the deal with her and Lance because they have all the details and it’s only fuelled their efforts to get her to stop her work obsession. “You never saw him as a tool for stress relief.”

“I see Keith filled you in on the argument…”

“Yeah, and you straight up lied,” she retorts staunchly. “You have feelings for Lance. Strong ones, but you—”

“I had to, Nadia!” Pidge snaps, swinging around in her rolling chair and glowering at them both. “What was I supposed to fucking do?! Sit there and wait for him to break my heart? I _heard_ him. Keith heard him too. He was going to break things off with me. He said he was never serious about me!”

Keith grimaces as he scratches the back of his head. “Well… he didn’t say all that. He wanted to make things more clear.”

“That’s code for ‘we’re not serious so I’m dumping her’, Keith. Don’t be naïve.” Keith has nothing to say in response to that so she spins back around to face her computer, furiously typing out her extra credit response paper to a journal article her professor had sent. “He was never serious about me. And what makes me the angriest is that he had the nerve to ask me out to dinner when he had no intention of being real with me. To think… I was about to waste an entire confession on that moron.”

There’s silence in her room for a very long time, and then Keith sighs.

“Pidge… Lance doesn’t ask anyone out. Ever,” Keith points out, glancing at Rizavi for a second who looks surprised. “I’m not necessarily saying to go back to him, because even I have my reservations about what he meant too, but he’s acted in seriously uncharacteristic ways regarding you. And I don’t know, but… I’m starting to think maybe you’re looking at this all wrong.”

She feels her throat tighten for a moment and stops typing, staring at the words on her screen and trying to ignore the stabbing pain in her chest.

“If you had actual feelings for each other,” Keith continues slowly, “then don’t let my meddling get in the way. You should go talk to him. I think… Lance might have been serious about you. Or at least, was getting serious.”

“What?” She snaps her gaze over to him, a brow raised in annoyance. “A minute ago, you didn’t think he was serious either.”

“Yeah, but that was before I knew about the date. You don’t understand. That’s extremely not like Lance _at all_.”

“Well maybe he was just trying a new womanising tactic since cheap shit wouldn’t work with me. Just because you’re his friend doesn’t mean you know everything about the inner workings of his mind.” When it looks like both of them are about to argue the point, she cuts them off. “Look, it’s okay. I’m fine, alright? It was bound to happen sooner or later and I’m glad you warned me off sooner rather than later, before I…”

Before she could really and truly fall for him.

Her eyes feel like they’re about to well with tears and she blinks them away furiously.

“Pidge, I really should have kept my nose out of your business. I’m sorry,” Keith says softly, his eyes shining in shame.

“You were looking out for me. I’d rather have a friend who takes personal interest in my activities than one that lets me get burned, so actually, I should be thanking you.” Her chest feels tight though and Pidge can’t muster up a real smile, but she makes an effort. She laughs but it feels hollow. “Keith, I’m good. Promise. I mean, I can’t go back to your room for a while, But I’m sure you understand. TV night is postponed until… you know.”

“I could bring my TV in here?” Rizavi suggests, hopping off the bed. “My roommate brought one at the beginning of the semester so we’ve got a spare. There’s a Chopped marathon on tonight. You guys wanna watch? You need to get away from the books, Pidge.”

“Yeah.” Pidge runs a hand through her hair with a sniff and shuts the lid and she doesn’t realise how much she’d wanted a distraction. She stands up and stretches her arms high into the air with a loud yawn, her joints cracking from being in the same position for so long. “Yeah, sounds good.”

“Alright. I’ll go grab some snacks,” Keith declares as he heads out of her room.

Rizavi hangs back for a moment, her face twisted in concern. “Are you sure you don’t want to curl up under the covers and have a grieving sesh instead? You had a pretty bad breakup. And you don’t seem to have let it out of your system with some proper crying.”

“It wasn’t a breakup, Riz.” Pidge opens her fridge to grab a couple sodas for them. “And I’m fine.”

And honestly, Pidge _is_ fine.

Or at least, she will be. She’s a little shaken up, and it’s a tough adjustment getting used to the fact that she’s not spending time with Lance, but she’s not going to dwell on this. She has a life outside of Lance. An awesome one and awesome friends and her summer is all planned out and she’ll focus on all those amazing aspects that have nothing to do with him.

And she’ll be fine.

…

Pidge doesn’t see Lance around at all anymore, not even in the hallway—and yeah, maybe in a moment of weakness, she waits outside her room between nine and ten to possibly catch a glimpse of him—and she’s not sure if that’s a concerted effort on his part.

At first, she’d been able to use work as a crutch, but even she grows sick of working so often. But stopping the ample work gives her too much free time which reminds her of the abrupt end to all the time she’d spent with Lance. It leaves her feeling hollow, like there’s a huge chunk of her life missing.

Every once in a while, she’ll start to feel pain bubbling up in her chest that could render her an absolute mess, but she does take pride in the fact that she can hide her wretched, unstable emotions behind her wall of focus and iron will. There’s no reason to let this… weird end of a _thing_ affect her productivity. She’d always been amazing at handling her emotions before Lance. She can do it again now that he’s out of her life.

And that’s how she goes on.

Spring Break comes and she goes on a date with some guy in her home city a few times, but it goes nowhere past some kisses here and there and one heavy makeout session in the front seat of his truck. And she hates it. She feels like she’s betraying Lance, which is ridiculous because they’re not even together. The guy asks her if she wants to come over, and she ends their dating experience, telling him she’s not ready for any casual hookups.

And then Spring Break ends and she finds herself obsessively skimming Lance’s social media pages as she’s on her plane back to school. She wants to see if he’s moved on or has dirty pictures with other girls, but apparently he hadn’t gone to Tijuana like most people at their school go. He’d stayed with his oldest sister and her wife all break in another city. His sister is a surgeon at a hospital and he’d shadowed her all break.

And that’s relieving for Pidge.

But she knows she can’t keep doing this to herself. She can’t keep pining over Lance like this. She can’t keep obsessing over where he is and what he’s doing (or _who_ he’s doing) so Pidge resolves to get over him the best way she gets over anything that doesn’t benefit her anymore.

Get rid of all traces of it.

She deletes all their texts and his number, blocks him on social media so she doesn’t see anything regarding him pop up, even on other people’s posts. And after the preliminary panic of removing his information from her life and almost asking Keith for Lance’s number so she can _call him_ , she gets right back to it with renewed energy.

She tosses all the small, clean towels he might have used to clean off his spunk at some point or another, and she replaces them with new ones. Then she thoroughly cleans her dorm room, reorganising her clothes, lining up her shoes in the closet, and putting her toiletries in their proper places.

With everything in order, she _really_ delves deep in her Lance purge. She dumps the broken futon near the dumpster behind her dorm and tosses the cum-stained cushion, which she’d been lying about and saying was an oil stain because she couldn’t get it out of the fabric. Then she throws out Lance’s Valentine’s Day dick ribbon that she’d stupidly kept and shreds up the old reward cards with pervy prizes she’d meant to give him to use as motivation when he studies for his physics final.

Anything that reminds her of Lance or was Lance’s or has something to do with Lance, she drops in the garbage, ignoring the sharp pain making her chest ache and deciding it’ll feel much better in a day or two. She’s tempted to stop using birth control too, but she hasn’t researched what quitting cold turkey could do to her without properly transitioning off of it, so she opts to make an informed decision come summer time.

It’s not like she’s definitively planning on finding someone new to hook up with over the summer, but she has no purpose for being on the pill since she’s not going to let anyone else hit it raw.

Rizavi doesn’t buy that she’s okay with The Breakup™ and she’s clearly freaked out by the fact that Pidge is extensively cleaning and it’s not the end of the school year, but Pidge can feel it once she’s done that she feels marginally better, and she thinks she’s made the right decision.

She’s over him.

It’s time to move on.

…

“It’s your birthday!” Rizavi yanks her onto her feet and pushes her towards her closet. “I’m not going to let you sit here and wallow all day!”

“I haven’t sat here and wallowed. We went out to dinner with all our friends earlier, remember?” she points out, protesting Rizavi’s rough treatment as she grabs the hem of Pidge’s top and yanks it off. “And Keith took me to get an all-expense paid, full body, two hour massage in the afternoon.”

“Yeah, well your birthday ain’t over until midnight and it’s a _Friday_ so get off your bootie so you can go shake it at a bar!”

Of course, Rizavi gets what Rizavi wants (even though it’s _Pidge’s_ birthday!) and before Pidge knows it, she’s all cute-ified before they hurry onto a school shuttle that’ll take them closest to the intersection to get to the bar.

Pidge finds out on the ride that Rizavi’s real reason for wanting to go to a bar specifically is to test out the two perfect fakes she’d gotten them made over spring break. And apparently there’s some party happening that a lot of people from their school had tweeted about saying it’s great. So Rizavi makes it her mission to find Pidge a rebound to have some hot n' heavy, porn-star birthday sex with, which she quickly agrees to, if only so that the other people on the shuttle stop giving them amused looks since Rizavi’s voice is bouncing around.

In theory, it’s a great idea and Pidge is incredibly grateful for Rizavi’s sweet caring nature, her unwavering support, and her ability to always pull Pidge out of her funks. It’s been about a week since her Lance-purge and so far, she really has been feeling better so it seems like a really good idea.

But reality is always a different story.

And the reality is that Lance is at the bar party too.

Pidge only realises that because she stumbles over to the bar to order a Long Island to split with Rizavi and happens to look at the people near her.

And she’s met by the gruesome sight of Lance making out heavily with some random girl by the counter, his hands under her shirt, hers all in his hair, their bodies so close they’re practically one person. The girl slides her hand down Lance’s chest, reaching down to cup him above his pants, her lower lip caught between her teeth flirtatiously when he smirks. They’re all over each other in a way that leaves no doubt in Pidge’s mind as to where their night is headed.

It’s horrifying to see and her stomach drops to her feet as her lungs seize in her chest so tight Pidge can’t seem to draw any breath at all.

“Hey, wanna get out of here?” the girl purrs, trailing a finger along his jaw to guide his lips back to hers.

“I… can’t do that.” Lance sighs, detangling himself from her a bit and taking a step back. “I made a promise to someone I wouldn’t sleep with anyone else. And call me crazy, but it still wouldn’t feel right to do that to her.”

Pidge holds her breath, her heart thundering in her chest from his words.

“An ex?” the girl asks, raising a bored brow.

“Something like that… yeah.”

“I get it. I really do. I was in the same boat last month. But if she’s done with you,” she says with a slight shrug, tweaking his chin and blinking up at him through her eyelashes, “the only way you can really get over it is if you move on. I can help you fuck those feelings out of your system and it won’t even mean anything. Like, I just want to sleep with a hot guy. So… do you wanna get out of here or what?”

It’s almost comically bad, the moment when Lance’s eyes drift around mindlessly, an uncertain look on his face as he thinks about her proposition, until they happen to land on Pidge. She can’t deny that familiar thrill of electricity from his gaze on her, the way his eyes widen and soften for the briefest second, and Pidge wants to tell him not to leave with her. She wants to beg him not to say yes, to stop kissing her and touching her, to come back to Pidge because she can’t bear the thought of Lance sleeping with anyone else.

But Lance sighs, rubbing the back of his neck in resignation, and despite Pidge’s desperate wish, he turns back to the girl he’s with and gives her his signature charming fuckboy smile.

“Yeah, you know what…? Why not?”

The girl takes his hand with a coy little smile, and they leave together, and Lance doesn’t look back once, and just like that, all the air in the room feels like it’s been sucked out. Pidge’s pulse thrums rapidly, and she almost starts laughing hysterically. 

It’s her worst nightmare.

She stares after where they had just been standing, her heart pounding in her chest so hard it starts to hurt. She thinks her vision is blurring because of the tears prickling in the back of her eyes, but she starts to sway on her feet and suddenly, she feels horribly sick.

Pidge races through the mass of jumping bodies, cutting past the line of girls trying to use the bathroom and barely able to hold in her bile before she gets to the large bin. She grips the side, vomiting violently in there, tears making everything blurry, and she keeps right on throwing up and then dry heaving when there’s nothing in her stomach anymore. She can vaguely hear some women asking her if she’s okay.

But even so, it doesn’t matter because all she can see is Lance all over that girl. All she can hear is their conversation on replay. All she can recall is the way he’d seen Pidge and completely disregarded her like she no longer matters.

And it shatters her heart into a thousand pieces.

She slumps down on her knees in front of the trash can, horribly wailing, her shoulders wracked with her heavy sobs. Some of the girls fixing their faces huddle near her, crouching beside her and rubbing her back but Pidge can’t stop crying.

“Was she drugged?!”

“Who’d she come here with?”

“I think I saw her come in with the brown girl who has the gold septum piercing.”

“In the orange romper? I’m gonna go find her!”

There’s a sweet woman cooing soothing words in her ear and lightly scratching her back, but despite that, Pidge can’t even look up through her uncontrollable sobbing. She’d thought she was fine. She’d thought everything would be okay, but seeing him once had been enough to destroy her. She’s not even close to being over Lance. Furthest thing from, but after today _he_ will be. And that makes a fresh bout of tears spring to her eyes.

Rizavi races into the bathroom a few seconds later, terror in her expression as she zones in on Pidge. The other girls step away to let her get to her.

“Oh babe…” Rizavi helps her stand, wrapping her up in a hug and carding a hand through her hair to console her. “What happened? You were doing fine.”

“Riz, you were right, okay? I’m not over it! I’m not over _him_!” Pidge sobs again, her sharp hiccups breaking up her words as she burrows her face in Rizavi’s shoulder. “I-I saw Lance with someone else. He said he promised he’d— he’d never sleep with someone else, and— and they left together… he _left_ with her… we’re— we’re really over…”

Rizavi exhales slowly, shaking her head. “That’s it. I can’t let you keep going on like this.”

Pidge pulls back with a sniffle, confusion on her face as Rizavi wipes away some of the tears from under her eyelids.

“You’re going to go talk to Lance. You’re going to make up and figure all this shit out because you still care for him and I don’t believe for a second that he no longer cares for you, and I’d be damned if I let you two dumdums end a great relationship on this sour note. Y’all need to talk.”

“I-I can’t! We got in a huge—”

“Fight, yeah, yeah. I _know_. And now you need to make up. Stop acting like children and talk it out.” Rizavi waves off the concerned looks of the lingering girls in the bathroom. She wraps an arm tight around Pidge’s shoulders and herds her out of the crowded bathroom. “Thank you all for watching her until I got here! She just got in a fight with a guy who’s probably her soulmate or something, but we’ll take care of it. She’s going to get back together with him.”

Pidge lets Rizavi tug her along out of the bar and down the sidewalk on their way to the closest campus shuttle stop, confused out of her mind and a little whiplashed. It takes her a while to realise what Rizavi had even said in the first place, but when everything catches up to her, her eyes go wide in fright.

“Riz, stop!” Pidge sinks her heels into the ground, bringing them both to a screeching halt. “I’m not talking to Lance! I can’t!”

“ _Katie_.” Rizavi rounds on her, grabbing her face with both hands and forcing her to look her in the eye. “Do you want to be with Lance?”

“It doesn’t matter! I said so many awful things to him and now—”

“That’s not what I asked you. Do you—” Rizavi forces her head to nod, “—or do you not—” she makes Pidge shake her head, “—want to be with Lance?”

“I-I do…” Pidge’s voice cracks, her eyes welling with fresh tears again. “I want to be with Lance.”

Rizavi loosens her hold on her face, stroking her flushed cheeks with a proud look.

“So let’s go get your man.”

…

Pidge practically sprints back to Arus, races up the stairs and bangs on Lance’s door as hard as she can. Rizavi is right on her tail, and they’re both close to dying from the amount of effort it had taken to run from the shuttle stop to her dorm, but she’s not thinking about any of that right now.

Not when she’s about to lose Lance.

“Pidge…” Rizavi gasps for breath, leaning heavily against the wall and shaking her head with a grimace. “I don’t think… he’s… in…”

“He has to be!” She knows how he used to operate. One night stands were always in his room. Why would he change that now? “Where else would he be?”

Pidge groans, the sinking feeling of her stomach growing worse the longer no one answers. She spins on her heel, running down the hallway until she gets to Kinkade’s door. Rizavi wheezes as she pulls herself off the wall to trudge after Pidge. Pidge pounds on Kinkade’s door too.

“Kinkade?! Kinkade are you in?!”

James’s door two doors down opens up and Kinkade pokes his head out in confusion. “Pidge? Rizavi? What’s wrong?”

She walks over to him, tears prickling the back of her eyes. “Do you know where Lance is?! I can’t find him.”

“He was going to a bar, I think… uh, I wish I could help, but I’m kinda…”

And as they both stop in front of the door, Pidge realises he’s not wearing pants and has his dick pretty much on full display. Rizavi clearly notices too because she gasps excitedly beside her, hissing Stallion Dick™ in her ear. Pidge apologises to Kinkade hurriedly and pulls Rizavi forcibly away towards her own room. To her annoyance, the tears she’d been trying to stop earlier come back, pooling on her eyelids and blurring her vision.

“He’s not here… he’s definitely over it.” Over _her_. She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “Let’s just… let’s just call it a night, okay? I’m sorry I made you run.”

Pidge tries to laugh, but it comes out as a whimpered sob, and Rizavi grasps her shoulders, a pained frown on her face.

“Pidge. He’s not. Not if what you guys had was really as intense as all the stuff you’ve told me. I’ve listened to everything you’ve said. And I don’t believe for a second that he would be over it that fast. Hell, after what Keith has told me about the him of the past, I don’t believe for a second that he wanted to break things off with you either.”

“Riz—”

“ _Look_. You just go sit there in front of his door and wait for him to come back, okay?” Rizavi guides her over to Lance and Keith’s room and forcefully makes her sit. Pidge plops down in front of it, pulling her knees up to her chest with a dejected sigh. She knows Rizavi is trying to make her feel better, but the last thing Pidge wants is to sit here waiting forever for Lance when he’s definitely not going to be back tonight. “I’ll go grab some coffee for us and I’ll be right back. Do. Not. Move. Okay? _Okay_?!”

“O-okay.” Pidge blinks up at Rizavi, a little frightened by the wild look in her best friend’s eyes as she races towards the stairwell doors.

Pidge doesn’t know why she’d agreed to it in the first place. Why is she even torturing herself waiting like this? There’s absolutely no reason to give herself false hope. Lance closes the deal any chance he gets. There’s no way he’s not having sex with that other girl right now, and Pidge knows they’d ended everything, but she still has feelings for him and it really hurts. Just the thought of him with another girl makes her heart feel like someone’s reached into her chest and ripped it out of her and she’s trying not to think about that, but she can’t because she’d fucked everything up in the first place. She should have never said all that awful shit to him.

Pidge’s gaze turns blurry from tears again and she stares at the aged piece of gum stuck to the carpet in front of her, sniffling miserably as her heart breaks all over again.

She doesn’t know how long she sits there waiting, but rapid footsteps approach and then come to an abrupt stop in front of her.

“Riz…” Pidge says quietly. “I’m just going to give up. My adrenaline was all pumped up before but I don’t know if I can handle this anymore. Lance is probably balls deep in that other girl and I… I just can’t deal with that. I lost him and I didn’t— I didn’t even get to tell him how I actually feel and… and…”

A soft sob escapes her lips as her voice breaks and she roughly wipes her eyes, annoyed with the stupid emotions. Rizavi crouches in front of her and dark _jeans_ fill Pidge’s gaze instead of the smoothly shaven gorgeous bronze legs. Pidge glances up in confusion, only to be utterly shocked when she sees Lance.

It freaks her out and Pidge screams, leaning back wide eyed and plastering her back to the door.

“Wha— _Lance_?!”

“Not the reaction I expected,” he responds slowly, an odd expression on his face like he’s torn between laughing and his concern.

“What are you—? I thought— at the bar… you left with her…” Pidge finishes pathetically, her face twisting in distaste as she stares at the ground again. “Weren’t you about to…?”

“Yeah. I was going to.”

“Oh.”

“And then Rizavi called me and told me you got mugged and I sprinted over here.”

Pidge’s gaze shoots up. “I… _what_?”

But she realises Lance is kind of breathing hard and his cheeks are a healthy shade of red from slight overexertion. Her heart lurches in her chest. He’d left to come to her. In the middle of a sure thing for some girl who’d treated him like shit.

“Let me guess: she lied.” He looks peeved when Pidge nods slowly. Lance rises to his feet, blowing out a frustrated breath as he scrubs his hands over his face. “For fuck’s sake… she had me fucking terrified expecting the worst!”

“You… you came all the way here for me?” she asks in a meek voice. Hopeful.

“Even after all that bullshit, yeah.” Lance closes his eyes for a second and when he opens them, he looks pained and lets out a long, ragged sigh. “It’s official. You definitely ruined me. I can’t get you out of my fucking head. Everything literally reminds me of you.”

Swallowing past the knot in her throat, Pidge scrambles to her feet, chewing on the inside of her cheek as she wrings her hands into the skirt of her dress.

“Lance, I didn’t mean it. The shit about using you for your services. Or about stress relief. I was scared you would hurt me. You told me you weren’t trying to be serious with anyone, and I couldn’t do casual anymore because I fell for you and I knew that wasn’t you and I thought you were going to dump me and I wanted to hurt you before you could hurt me but really that isn’t what I wanted _at all_ because I just want to be with you. That’s all I wanted to say. That’s what I _should have_ said in the first place. I understand if that means nothing now though. So give me your worst. I can take it.”

The whole time she’d spoken, Lance had stopped his pacing and had been staring at her in rapt attention, a thoughtful look on his face, though still guarded. But at the end of her spiel, something subtle shifts in his expression that she can’t read, though he nods resolutely.

“You wanna hear something kind of funny?” Lance laughs a bit to himself, a fond look on his face. “I met this girl last semester who acted like she hated my guts. I mean, _really_ thought I was scum for some reason. And funny thing is, she wanted nothing to do with me, but I still chased after her. Thought it was because she was a challenge but… I figured out fast that it was because deep down I’d always known that it’d be worth it. That _she’d_ be worth it.”

Pidge holds her breath, chewing on her lower lip as he speaks.

“She’s prickly, abrasive, a control freak, calls me a moron about fifty times a day… and makes me want to hang up the fuckboy title permanently.” Lance’s gaze slides over to her, a warm sincerity in the vivid blue that makes her heart turn somersaults. “It’s been a while since I’ve only wanted to be with one girl so strongly. And take her out to dinner and go on trips to the beach with her and spend time with her and learn everything about her. Even the not so pleasant stuff. If that’s not getting serious about someone, then I don’t know what is.”

Tears make the back of Pidge’s eyes itch, but she hates crying and she’s not about to get all sappy and start crying over a guy like this when he confesses to her. But she can’t help but be emotional because they’d both said some horrible stuff to each other but he’s willing to move past it all and move on if she is.

“I didn’t mean what I said either, you know?” Lance continues apologetically, giving her a serious look. “You have no idea how special you are to me.”

Her heart feels like it’s swelling to a thousand times larger than its normal size.

“…I’m not a control freak,” Pidge responds softly, a small smile pulling up the corners of her lips as her cheeks flush. “You never let me be one with you, you moron.”

“I was wondering when I’d get that one.” Lance snorts, moving in front of her and brushing the sweaty strands of hair out of her face. He cups her jaw, stepping closer with an earnest look in his soft gaze. “Katie… you’ve been the only thing I’ve been able to focus on for so long that it feels wrong that you’re not in my life right now. You really fucked me up.”

“That’s my line.” She leans into his touch, sniffling and feeling her stupid eyes start to water again. “I don’t want to be your fuck buddy anymore, Lance.”

“I haven’t really seen you that way since well before winter break, to be honest,” he remarks quietly, using his thumb to wipe a tear. “Right around the time you caught that cold. And then we got back from break and you looked so happy to see me and I knew I was a goner.”

Her eyes go wide. “But why didn’t you…?”

“I did try. I dropped hints to get an idea of how you might feel about moving past just sex, but every time I thought maybe we were on the same page, you would shut me down. And I may act like I’m some impervious guy who doesn’t give a shit about anything, but I really cared— _care_ —about you. You could have destroyed me if you wanted, and I wasn’t ready to get hurt by you. I just wanted to see if you wanted to be with me but you were pretty hot and cold.”

And Pidge knows exactly what he’s talking about.

Asking her to Hunk’s dinner party, holding her hand at the coffee shop for no conceivable reason, taking her to his secret spot and other instances of when he’d blurred the lines. And she’d shut him down a few of those times because she’d thought he'd been stringing her along. All because she’d believed he didn’t have any intention to be serious with her. She’d been ruining things in subtle ways, likely chipping away at Lance’s confidence that maybe she wanted to head towards the same path to a relationship as he did. Seeing it from his perspective, she can see why he’d reacted so badly to the shit she’d said about using him when she’d broken things off.

“Oh my God… Were you tired of me not getting it? Tired of _me_?”

Had that been why he’d wanted to break things off?

“What are you talking about? You’re like the best thing that’s happened to me in all of uni,” Lance responds with a snort.

“Then… then why did you say that to Keith?” She searches his gaze, her own voice sounding mousy and frightened in her own ears. She’s scared of what he’ll say. Unprepared for potential heartbreak because none of her guard is up at all. “The stuff about not going on with it. About making things clear.”

“Because I was tired of pretending we were _just_ fuck buddies, Katie. The plan was to tell you on our date that I wanted to start a real relationship. Make it clear that I had feelings for you, but you know… _that_ happened.”

“Lance… I can’t even— what the hell is wrong with me?” Pidge lets out a breathless laugh in disbelief because she can’t believe how stupid she’s been. “I misunderstood _everything_. I thought you were saying you could never be serious about me. And then I assumed you were trying to dump me and I wanted to throw the first punch because I knew I would be heartbroken. I’m so sorry I hurt you. And all over a misunderstanding.”

“I’m sorry too.” Lance exhales slowly, an amused crease between his brows as he shakes his head. “What a fucking mess…”

“I guess this is why everyone says to dip as soon as you catch feelings for your fuck buddy.”

“Yeah. But I want to try this again with you. The right way. Get to know you for real.” He shrugs with one shoulder, stepping closer and leaning down, his mouth hovering close to hers as he loosely grasps her chin. “And if you’re feeling up to it, we can go out on boring dates to boring shit and end the night having raunchy sex in the back of a cab or something. Just a thought.”

She laughs for real, holding his gaze, her pulse racing and giddiness bubbling in her chest. “We never did get to go on our first date.”

“Hmmm. True.” His lips curl up in that adorable crooked smile of his. “How about dinner with me then? Tomorrow night?”

“Yeah. That’d be great…”

Lance leans down, close to closing the gap, and her eyes flutter shut, but just then, loud clapping and whooping and hollering fill the hallway and they pull apart, looking in the direction of the noise. To her horror, a crap ton of the guys on her floor are peeking out of the common room or their own rooms watching them and Pidge’s cheeks burst into flames. Had they heard all of it?!

“What the hell…” Pidge peels out, knowing her face must look like a tomato by now. “Were… were you guys spying the whole time?!”

“We heard you scream and we just wanted to be on standby just in case to make sure you were okay.” Kinkade looks sheepish where he’s standing by the fire alarm (unfortunately wearing a towel now). “But you guys were pretty deep in conversation so we didn’t want to interrupt. Happy for you guys though. Congrats. You make a cute couple.”

The guys start cheering again and one whooping guy shouts that this calls for celebration, and before she can stop him, he shoots off the flare gun in his hand into the ceiling and in his surprise, accidentally shoots the couch too. Both explode into flames, and there are shouts as people scatter. In a matter of seconds, the sprinklers in the ceiling gush out water and the fire alarms to go off.

“For fuck’s sake.” Pidge groans and lets Lance pull her into a tight hug, her face buried in his chest as he rubs her back. “I’ve aged fifty years being your damn RA…”

…

“I’ve officially hit fifty incidents…” Pidge growls as she scans the report she’s about to email to Coran and the Res Office. “Coran told us he’d throw a pizza party for the Arus RAs if we stayed under two hundred total this year. I was our last hope. Every one of you is a moron. Who the fuck thinks having a flare gun indoors is a good idea?”

Having to fill out an incident report this late at night isn’t even the most annoying part of the night. It’s that look that the firefighter had given her as she explained what had happened to set the roof on fire. He’d clearly thought she didn’t know how to do her job if she couldn’t keep her residents from bringing fire hazards inside the dorm like this.

Lance chuckles, leaning on the side of her desk and watching her proofread. “Your report is perfect. You checked it three times already.”

She waves off his comment. “I know, but it doesn’t hurt to check again.”

He’s been watching her intensely since they’d gotten back in the dorm and well before that while the firefighters were in the dorm checking the damage, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what’s on his mind right now. It’s on her mind too, but work always comes first.

“That’s what you said the last time.”

She ignores him and starts scrolling back up to review it one more time when he reaches past her and taps the send arrow at the top of the page. Pidge turns in affront, but before she can say anything, Lance seals his mouth over hers in a pervasive, unrelenting kiss. Fire pools in her abdomen almost immediately, her body reacting from memory. She pretty much melts, a tiny whimper leaving her lips and she’s surprised she can even hear it over the frantic drumming of her heart. He kisses her like he can’t find anything else he’d rather be doing and when he pulls away, she chases his lips absentmindedly. Lance’s little smirk makes an embarrassed blush rise on her face, but she’s distracted and can’t even remember what she’d been thinking about to begin with.

“Katie…” Lance murmurs with hooded eyes, nuzzling his nose to hers. “I just want to feel you.”

His voice is hoarse and she realises he’s just as affected as she is. It’s been far too long without having each other.

(And she also realises she’s so very turned on when she shifts in her chair and her panties feel moist).

Pidge stands up and jumps into his waiting arms, meeting his lips in a filthy, desperate, heated kiss. They both sigh happily like they’ve wanted nothing more than to be with each other again. And for Pidge, it’s like a breath of fresh air, something she’s been missing dearly. She slides her hands into his hair, trying to be as physically close to him as possible when he lays her down on her bed. Goosebumps erupt on her skin everywhere he touches her under her skirt, everywhere he drags his lips, every time he brings his mouth back to hers, reminding her over and over just how much they’ve come to mean to each other.

It’s a little wild, but still gentle the way they hold each other, each touch heavy with meaning, their gazes locked as he slowly takes off her dress, as she unbuttons and peels his shirt off his body, as his pants and boxers come off, as her underwear gets tossed over the side of her bed. It’s like they’re savouring each other, making up for all the time they’ve lost away from each other. And she loves it, she loves the way his naked skin feels on hers, but she just wants to feel him inside her right now. Needs to remember how amazing it is to be connected to him, physically and emotionally.

“Lance…” she breathes out with a shudder, grasping his face and kissing him softly when he grinds hard against her entrance.

He understands her plea without more prompting and holds her hips in place, his long fingers gripping her as he sheaths himself in her in one fluid motion. Her breath hitches at the sensation of his hard cock stretching her, smiling because she’d really missed this. Lance rubs his thumbs over her hip bones, his eyes dancing in the dimmed-lighting of her room from the fairy lights.

“You’re the only one who’s ever made me feel so complete like this, Katie…” Lance says, his voice strained and heated.

She whimpers breathlessly when he starts moving, his thrusts long and even in a perfect rhythm, driving her insane from how thoroughly he’s hitting all the right spots. Lance leans down and captures her mouth with a hungry urgency, and Pidge hooks her ankles at his lower back. Her moans are swallowed by his mouth, their tongues entwined as he drives slow and deep inside her. Electricity dances up her spine as the pressure inside her starts to build as she raises her hips to meet each of his urgent thrusts.

There are no words spoken between them, just an understanding of their needs as their hands glide all over their overheated skin, their bodies so wrapped around each other it’s hard to tell where he ends and she begins. Lance pulls out and rolls them over, tugging her on his lap to straddle him. She exhales in a broken groan when she sinks slowly down on him, feeling all his inches penetrating deep where she wants him.

She braces her arms on either side of his head, her bottom lip caught between her lip as she uses the leverage to slowly ride him, pressing down to meet each of his thrusts up. Pidge moans, already clenching tight as the heat from his cock scorches her. It’s overwhelming, his pulsing heat and the intensity of his size and she grinds her hips more relentlessly, her climax building sharply when his hands trail up her sides to her chest as he kneads her breasts. Their lips find each other in a provocative kiss, scorching heat blazing through her body as she quickly starts to descend towards an orgasm.

“ _O-ohhh_ … fuck yes…” she moans, pulling her knees closer to Lance’s body for more leverage. “ _Yes_!”

She starts losing her rhythm when she gets close, her hands shaking where she clutches the covers, and Lance wraps his arms around her to help pull her down harder. Her knees and thighs are cramping and her breath is coming out in little more than short pants and gasps but she’s right on the cusp of something fantastic. Frantic need shivers through her as she sits up, gripping his muscular thighs behind her as she bounces on his lap, growing even wetter from the erotic sight of his thick cock disappearing inside her, sliding in and out perfectly like it was always meant to be there. All it takes is a well-timed buck of his hips up and Pidge plunges right over the crest, a full-bodied shudder running through her body as she loses it.

She comes with a soul-shattering intensity, her eyes tightly closed, unsteady from her breathless, urgent gasps for breath. Earth is still spinning on its axis when Lance sits up and rolls her under him in a fluid motion, a small smirk on his lips as he rocks into her, snapping his hips hard and fast. Pidge cries out, her brain short-circuiting from the sheer bliss of Lance’s throbbing cock pounding into her, the aftershocks of her orgasm making her toes curl.

He claims her possessively with each thrust, his lips peppering mindless kisses along her jaw and neck in between his grunts. The pressure under her navel rises sharply from the rough grind of his thick cock along her walls. For a moment, Pidge’s heart stutters in her chest, unbelievable pleasure burning her when his cock strokes something that has her seeing stars. She tumbles right into another orgasm, a wild wave of pleasure wracking her body with spasms.

“ _Ungghhh_ …”

“You’re so fucking perfect, Katie…” Lance grunts as his rhythm falters for a moment, hiking a leg up on his forearm and shifting his angle and setting an impossibly intense pace. “Fuck… so tight… _fuck_ …”

Pidge sucks in a sharp breath, releasing it in a high pitched whine when sparks ignite through her body. She arches into him, dragging her nails across his back and moaning long and low. Lance’s soft curses against her neck are so hot, and she can’t help but touch him, loving the flush on his face, the feel of the flexing, shivering muscles in his shoulders and arms as he thrusts hard inside her.

“ _Lance_ … right _there_ — oh my God, _please yes!_ ”

He’s incredibly tense, fucking her more roughly into the mattress, trying to go as deep as he can as he starts to reach his peak. Pidge tilts her head back in ecstasy, concentrating on how hard and hot he is, the way he throbs inside her, growing impossibly harder with each sharp jerk of his hips, his hot pants of breath tickling her ear. She reaches down and grasps his ass, pulling him harder into her and squeezing him as he slams into her more wildly, growling as he comes apart.

She can feel the soft spurt of his cum as he spills inside her, letting out a harsh groan of blissful agony from his orgasm. Pidge whimpers as he continues to thrust weakly, his forehead pressed to hers, their lips brushing against each other as they share the same air. He’s completely out of it, though he drags his fingers between her legs to rub circles around her clit.

“One more, _querida_ …” Lance says in a husky voice, the dark look in his eyes hypnotising her as he jerks his hips, his cock still hitting a spot inside her that has her opening her mouth in a silent scream. “I want to watch you come.”

A perfect press of his thumb right on her clit makes jolts of electricity shoot up her spine, and coupled with the pulsing of his cock, Pidge gives in to the overwhelming sensation. She cries out as her shattering release overtakes her, white lights dancing in her eyes as her whole body clenches.

Lance ruts in her a few more times, helping her ride out the powerful wave of her climax before they both collapse on her covers, gasping for breath and fighting to suck in shuddering lungfuls of air. She can feel him softening inside her as he comes down from his high, and Pidge rakes her fingers through his hair, appreciative of the fact that he’s in a plank to keep from crushing her with his weight.

Lance chuckles low beside her ear when his breathing is no longer so broken, kissing her neck softly before pulling out and dropping onto his side. Pidge strokes his face, dizzy, breathless and unable to take her eyes or hands off him. It’s unbelievable to her that she used to absolutely loathe this perfect, douchebag-shell-necklace wearing moron.

As if sensing her gaze on him, he opens his eyes, lips pulling up in a smile she knows matches hers. The kiss they share this time slows time, sucking them in their own little world as their tongues dance around each other’s. Every time they break apart, she giggles and he smiles. She slings her leg over his waist as he grinds his hips slowly against her, his dick bumping against her clit in a delicious way. Pidge can’t help her blissful sigh from how good it feels. The moment is peaceful, and Pidge is sure if her heart swells any more than it is, it’ll burst out of her chest.

When the need for more air is too great, they finally pull apart, Lance tucking Pidge against him, an arm cushioning her head as he idly trails his fingers along her shoulder. She presses a kiss on his chest, right above his heart, her hand splayed on his chest. She’s sure her happy, lazy grin is going to remain on her face for the rest of the year.

“You know… I had this whole year perfectly figured out and then you came along and screwed it all up…” she says, sated and blissed out as she gazes up at him, so much happiness brimming under her skin. “I never planned for a fuckboy to take over my life like this.”

Lance rubs her side with a playful, teasing smile. “I didn’t plan for some nerdy demon dwarf to take over my life like this either.”

She tilts her head up and their lips find each other’s again in a mindless, intoxicating kiss. There’s something so magical about being with Lance like this, comfortable and happy, that she wouldn’t change for the world. And she gets it. She’d never be the type to do something stupid like get a couple’s tattoo over a college (about to become her) boyfriend but he makes her feel like she wants to. He makes her feel like she wants to do a lot of things she would never have tried before, especially if it’ll make him happy too.

The calm of their afterglow is interrupted when there’s a knock on the door and a call of her name.

“Uh, just a sec!”

Pidge grimaces as she peels herself off Lance, lamenting the warmth immediately. She tosses her quilt on top of him and scrambles off her bed, grabbing Lance’s shirt and quickly buttoning herself up in it. Her hair is completely mussed and tangled and she knows there’s no way she can try to air out her room or fix it up so it doesn’t look like she’d just had sex.

“It’s open,” she calls out, wincing because technically, she’s on duty right now.

Kinkade opens the door a crack and peeks his head in. “Sorry to bother you guys. I know you’re doing your whole makeup sex thing, but it’s urgent. Can I borrow your Vaseline, Lance?”

Lance raises a brow, his eyes shining in mirth. “What for?”

Kinkade looks really embarrassed. “I’m not telling you. Knowing you, you’ll tell Hunk which means it’ll get out to everyone.”

“It’s in my room,” Lance says at length, and from the smirk on his face, Pidge knows he’s figured it out too. “Top drawer. I’ve got an ice pack in my freezer too. Works great for sore bums.”

“Fuck you, McClain.” He flips him off good-naturedly as he shuts the door.

Pidge stares at the vacant spot for a beat before she hums and turns to Lance.

“…You think James will have a prolapsed anus by the end of the year?” Pidge asks.

Lance cracks up hard, his loud, unabashed laughter bouncing off the walls. “That’s fucked up!”

She beams and climbs back up onto her bed to snuggle against him again. Pidge hugs around his waist, her face in the crook of his neck as she also laughs.

…

“And so. Because I am the absolute best, you now owe me. Like, big time.” Rizavi muses, kicking her legs back and forth from where she’s sitting on Pidge’s cleared desk. She has her phone in hand, taking obnoxious pictures of Pidge’s ass and whistling every time Pidge stoops. “You know, since I’m the one who got you back together with your guy and all… I’m thinking something along the lines of naming your first born child after me in the future. What do you think?”

“So you’ve mentioned every day for a month.” Pidge hums, pretending to think seriously about it as she sets another textbook in one of her cardboard boxes. “I think it’s trite. You can do better than that.”

“Urgh, you’re right.” Rizavi stretches out her leg to give Pidge a slight nudge on her bum when she bends over. “Give me a week. I’ll figure it out.”

Pidge snorts and continues her work trying to pack up whatever she already can so by the time she’s done with all the checkouts and cleaning once the seniors have graduated and they can finally leave, her move to the summer dorm she’ll RA in will go much more smoothly. She can’t leave until they do post semester room checks and have their last staff meeting, but it doesn’t hurt to get her packing started early so she doesn’t end up having to deal with the wild moveout dash. Her room currently looks like a mess, but once she organises everything and gets them in their right places, it’ll be fine. But the dorm’s air conditioning is on the fritz as they do the end of the year maintenance and the work is hot so Pidge opens the door wide so she can get some air. There are guys running down the hall everywhere, hurrying to clean up their rooms and get their belongings together for their departures.

She’s a little sad that Rizavi is going to visit her grandparents in Pakistan for the summer. They’ve been doing everything together since the very, very first day of freshman year when Pidge’s parents had just left the night before Freshman Orientation Week and Rizavi had dragged a reserved Pidge to a popping gay club downtown (ironically, leading to Pidge meeting Keith so if she thinks about it, Rizavi is also responsible for Pidge meeting her other best friend). But Pidge supposes it’s around that time that they have to pursue their own stuff too now that they’ve finished half of their college career.

“Riz, you _are_ literally the best,” Pidge admits with a smile as she turns to face her and Rizavi gives her a huge grin. “Hit me up on WhatsApp when you land, okay?”

“I’ll send you a whole photo album of my journey.”

Pidge’s on-duty phone buzzes with a text for another checkout appointment and she sighs. “Well, duty calls.”

“Yeah. My parents are almost here too. I should probably go back to my dorm to checkout.” Rizavi hops off the desk and walks over to Pidge to give her a tight hug. Pidge burrows her face in Rizavi’s shoulder, squeezing her tight and laughing when Rizavi coos at her and strokes her hair like she’s some kind of loving grandmother. “You better not spend the whole summer in your room or only studying for those classes you’re taking. It’s your responsibility to be irresponsible like I taught you, you hear? I’ll see you in September.”

“Love you, Riz.” Pidge tilts her head back to pout at her. “But I’ll love you more if you bring me back a ton of souvenirs so don’t forget.”

Rizavi laughs and presses her cheek to Pidge’s in a soft kiss. “Love you too, babe.”

They give each other one more tight squeeze before she lets go. As Rizavi leaves Pidge’s room, she bumps into Kinkade rolling a moving cart to his room and a large grin graces her face.

“Kinkade, I’d just like to personally thank you for gracing my life with a view of the Stallion Dick™. It was quite lifechanging. Worthy of the Louvre.”

“Thanks…?”

He looks simultaneously amused and confused as fuck as he walks on, and Pidge cracks up as Rizavi waves one more time and skips off. Pidge checks the phone one more time with her room assignment and it turns out to be Lance and Keith’s, so she grabs her clipboard and heads down the hall.

Their room door is open when she walks in. Keith has already packed up the last of his stuff in his plastic bins—his side of the room cleared and spotless and bed stripped—and now he’s trying to figure out the best position to stack the boxes on the cart. He’s going to stay in the city over the summer too, since he’s moving in with his sugar daddy until graduation next year, so Pidge isn’t too worried about goodbyes with him since she’ll be seeing a lot of him.

“Looks spotless, Keith,” Pidge says, nodding in approval as she does a quick scan of his area. Then she turns to Lance with a dry look, where he’s lounging on his bed, his back to the headboard, still hungover and watching some cooking show on his TV. “You on the other hand haven’t even started yet…”

“Quit bitching like a nagging wife,” Lance grumbles playfully, only to groan when Pidge smacks his arm with her clipboard. “Ow! I’m sorry, babe. Please don’t hurt me. I’m hungover and in pain.”

“It was your decision to consume that amount of alcohol. Deal with the consequences, you moron,” she retorts without a lick of remorse.

(Although she does appreciate that he’d forgone any clothes aside from his boxers).

Keith chuckles at their antics, picking up his reading lamp and setting it on the cart, wedged between the two unsteady, high stacks of boxes. “Kay. That’s everything. I’m ready, Pidge.”

“Think you’ll miss living in Arus, Keith?” Pidge holds her hand out and Keith drops his room key in her hand which she places in her small paper envelope.

“Hmm… will I miss my pubes getting shaved in the middle of the night?” Pidge snorts as she checks off a couple obvious things on their room agreement. The walls aren’t scuffed, no damage to the floor, he hadn’t broken his bed or scraped up the furniture. “Will I miss a bucket of oatmeal landing on my head walking by the dorm at night? Will I miss waking up at three in the morning because there’s a fire in the dorm? And then waking up at five in the morning because there’s _another_ fire in the dorm? Yeah, I don’t think so.”

“Aww, c’mon, Keith.” Lance pipes up, scratching at his throat when his voice comes out hoarse and parched. “This was a pretty good year, all things considered. No one broke their neck.”

Keith crouches, checking under his bed to make sure nothing is there. “That’s not true. Two weeks ago that sophomore Bandor on the fifth floor tried to do a kick flip on his skateboard down an entire flight of a stairwell from the top landing.”

Pidge moves away from where she’s checking the inside of all dresser drawers, a horrified look on her face. “What the fuck?”

“Oh yeah!” Lance laughs, grabbing his water bottle from the floor to chug some. “I was wondering why they’d won the Wildest Floor.”

“It was a cheap last ditch effort to try to beat us out.” Keith scowls, rising to his feet with cracking joints. “We had them beat for sure, and that was without any physical injuries but that took them all the way to the top.”

“I guess Bandor’s going in the Arus Hall of Fame for taking one for the team.”

“Coran put his picture up with the others outside his apartment. They all signed his neck brace and he’s walking around like he’s a celebrity,” Keith scoffs before unplugging his charger from the wall and sticking it in his school bag. “I heard his older sister is _pissed_.”

“I mean, you gotta give him props.” Lance points out, flipping channels when his show ends to find something new to watch. “He was willing to risk breaking bones in his body just for his floor to win notoriety. That deserves some kind of applause.”

“I guess…”

“You boys acted like a bunch of idiots.” Pidge rolls her eyes, squinting up at the vent to see if the metal grate is rusted and needs replacing for the next school year. “This year was a nightmare…”

But she supposes she had gotten a little attached to her ragtag group of rowdy guys. Every incident is undoubtedly annoying and she’d had to file so many this year she has pretty much memorised the form and can write one from scratch, but they’d definitely made her feel loved. If she’s assigned to Arus next year, she won’t complain.

(Though don’t get her wrong: she _doesn’t_ want Arus).

Keith’s phone pings from a text and when he checks it, his face lights up. “Alright. He’s here. You almost done, Pidge?”

“Ish. Make sure you get any of your laundry stuff from downstairs and go check the common room one more time to make sure you didn’t leave any personal belongings there.” Pidge reminds Keith. “When you get back, I’ll do your sign off.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right.”

Keith heads out of the room to get his stuff and Pidge turns to Lance with a sigh, hands on her hips.

“Last day for checkout and moveout for non-graduating students is tomorrow at noon, you know that right? Don’t you think you should start packing?”

“Nah.” Lance yawns loudly, the corners of his eyes tearing up a bit as he leans his head back against the headboard. He smiles up at her, a cute, sleepy grin gracing his face. “Don’t worry. I promise I won’t make your life hell. I’ll be done before then.”

Pidge squeaks when he reaches out and suddenly grabs her wrist, tugging her down despite her attempt to stay upright. She stumbles on his bed, almost sprawling, and her face practically lands in his armpit. Pidge sits up in annoyance, but even she can’t stop her smile when he’s looking up at her with that stupid cheeky smirk.

“Lance, I’m busy,” she says softly, raking a hand through his hair and then stroking his cheek. It’s hard for her to imagine that at the beginning of this year she’d only seen him as an aggressive flirting nightmare, because sometimes all he resembles is a sweet puppy. “I have yet to do the checkoff list.”

Lance takes her hand in his, kissing her fingertips and then her palm before giving her a suggestive look. “And I have yet to do my girlfriend today.”

Pidge hardly changes her expression, not impressed in the least by his lazy effort to try to seduce her. “That’s because you got wildly fucking drunk at the Voltron concert yesterday.”

“Yeah, but I was on my best behaviour. Touched you once and you told me to wait until we got back. You pinkie promised. And then _you_ fell asleep in the Uber.”

Pidge smiles to herself. Of course he’d remember a promise for nookie even when he was almost incoherently drunk. Lance had been getting particularly frisky and while she absolutely would have loved to screw in the concert bathroom or even in the huge crowd of people, experience has taught her that drunk!Lance is even more insatiable. She couldn’t stay up all night having sex when checkout appointments start as early as eight in the morning.

But he is right that they’d missed out on a great opportunity the night before.

“I’m leaving for Guatemala in a week and then I won’t be able to talk to you as easily. I’m gonna miss you,” Lance murmurs warmly, reaching up and cradling her face, his thumbs gently stroking her cheeks. “Not just your body, but you. You complete me.”

Her heart skips a beat in her chest, and she knows Lance is slowly wearing her down. And from the look on his face, he knows that too.

“It’s not like you’re going off to space for five years or something, Lance. You’ll be back in July.”

“I know…” His voice goes down an octave. “But it’s like… who needs a sunrise when they’ve got their girl waking up next to them every day?”

He’s doing that thing where his eyes dance with heat and he’s definitely turned the charm all the way up, and she knows he’s doing it on purpose, but Pidge has never been able to resist when he does that and she definitely can’t resist now.

“…Take your boxers off.”

She _hates_ that smug look of success on his face and works to wipe it off when she leans down to kiss him filthy and thorough. They get her shorts and his boxers off fast and she’s barely ready, but that doesn’t matter to her because she just wants to feel him inside her.

Sinking down on him feels like finding an oasis in a desert and she hadn’t realised how much she’d really wanted him yesterday night. She rides him fast, rolling her hips forward at a frantic pace, panting for breath and letting out soft whimpers while Lance drives up deep in her with soft grunts, his grip on her ass likely to leave bruises. It’s a little hectic, and they’re both moaning and his bedframe is creaking and they’re trying to get themselves off as fast as possible, and Pidge’s head swims, dizzy with need as her orgasm approaches.

She’s going to miss this.

She’s going to miss _him._

As if sensing her thoughts, Lance takes her hands from his shoulders, flattening his palms against hers and threading their fingers together. Their pace slows as she slowly rolls her hips, satisfaction blooming from where they’re connected and spreading through her body until it’s hard for her to breathe. She feels lightheaded, gasping and feeling like he completes a part of her she hadn’t known she’d been missing in the first place. Pidge smiles at Lance, her face flushed and heart skipping in her chest as he gazes up at her, a deep affection in his eyes like nothing else but their time together matters to him.

What they feel for each other is intense, and though it can’t be named just yet, she knows it’s sincere and beautiful and can only grow from here.

And she can honestly say becoming Lance’s fuck buddy all those months ago is one of the best decisions she’s ever made.

“Pidge, I put your HDMI cable back in your—”

Keith comes around the corner and stops dead in his tracks with a look of utter disgust when he sees them.

“ _What the hell_?! I left for _five_ minutes!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the end lol  
> thanks for reading this goofy story ^^


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